North American Premiere
In the wilderness of the Siberian Arctic, an Indigenous palaeontologist descends into the depths of the melting permafrost in search of an ancient creature.
Aisen Klimovskii
UK
2026
In Sakha with English subtitles
This short is featured in:
Short Forum 6: Archive Lives!
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Evgenia Arbugaeva
Cinematography
Maxim Arbugaev, Vladimir Egorov
Editor
Evgenia Arbugaeva, Joshua Chadwick
Evgenia Arbugaeva
Evgenia Arbugaeva is a photographer and filmmaker born in Tiksi, a town on the shore of the Laptev Sea in the Republic of Sakha. Her debut short, Haulout (2022), co-directed with her brother Maxim Arbugaev, documents the tragic effects of climate change on the walrus population of the Arctic, and was nominated for an Academy Award. Arbugaeva is a National Geographic Society Explorer and recipient of the ICP Infinity Award and the Leica Oskar Barnack Award for her photography. Her work has been exhibited internationally and has appeared in The New Yorker, Time, and National Geographic, among other publications.
Photo by Theodora Richter
VIFF Short Forum
See more shorts in this series
Short Forum 1: The Scarier One
The return of scary: fear in all its chilling, suspenseful, and unsettling shades.
Short Forum 2: Anthropomaxx
Dogs, frogs, hogs, and more!
Short Forum 3: Workers of the World
The grind of the working class in a system that betrays its promises.
Short Forum 4: Immanence: A Life
You don’t have to look far; life is beautiful!
Short Forum 5: Somewhere Else
If space and time are pure perception, let’s build them differently.
Short Forum 6: Archive Lives!
Before anything becomes archival, it’s lived.
Short Forum 7: War at Home
Truly, no one is safe until everyone is safe.
Short Forum 8: Sticky & Wet
No matter the age, things can always get sticky and wet.
Short Forum 9: Big Time Sensuality
Explorations of desire and intimacy serve both pain and pleasure.
Short Forum 10: Are the Kids Alright?
The future kinda depends on it.