Holgut

Liesbeth De Ceulaer's "Holgut" is a hypnotic mixture of feature film and documentary. Past and future condense in this poetic work and the boundary between myth and science gradually blurs, analogous to the permafrost on which it is based.

The film focuses on the boy Kymm, who is allowed to accompany his older brother on a reindeer hunt for the first time. On their long journey through the Siberian tundra, however, they come across signs of past life rather than prey. Between abandoned settlements from the time of a long-gone gold rush and a landscape marked by massive landslides, they increasingly lose hope. But then Kymm finds the tusk of a mammoth and the film changes perspective to Semjon. He is a scientist looking for mammoth DNA with the aim of resurrecting the extinct animal in the laboratory. Through his eyes we see the beginning of a new gold rush for prehistoric bones. A search framed by two climate crises - the one that caused the extinction of the mammoths and the one that is thawing the permafrost and thus exposing the valuable bones.

As a viewer, you have to get involved with Holgut. But those who do so will be rewarded many times over for their efforts. Thanks to the subtitling specially commissioned by films for future, Holgut is now also being made available to a German-speaking audience for the first time. An opportunity that should not be missed.