Film screening of “Hunters since the beginning of time” by Artica artist in residence selected by OCA, Office of Contemporary Art; Carlos Casas at Longyearbyen kulturhus.
Along the coast of the Bering Sea, we meet a community of whale hunters who are struggling to survive by keeping alive a tradition that is thousands of years old and surviving one of the most extreme environments on the planet.
Carlos Casas: “I wanted to capture the millenary tradition of Chukchi whale hunters, their ability to survive using archaic hunting techniques forced by international commissions. I wanted also to capture the hunting in all its splendor all its ritual with its inner times and cycles. I was interested in their survival and their feeding cycles. I wanted to make a film on the food chain of a whale hunter, from the wintertime to the summer, from the fish to the seal to the whale. I wanted the film to be a sort of action film, without much dialogue, a pure cinematic and visual experience. A film that captures the survival and determination of the world’s last whale hunters.”
Filmed in Chukotka, Siberia, 2008 (Russian/Chukchi with English Subtitles).
Marit Anne Hauan, Director for Tromsø Museum and board member of Artica Svalbard will introduce the film.
Carlos Casas is currently part of the exhibition "Ten Days Six Nights" at Tate Modern, London.
The event is free and open to all.
(Suitable for ages 12 and up)