Hadamo

Yamal, in the language spoken by the Nenets nomads means “end of the world.” The Yamal Peninsula lies in the far north of Siberia, overlooking the Kara Sea. Nika is one of the young daughters of a nomadic reindeer-herding family. Soon, with her two sisters, she will have to leave the yurt and the vast tundra to attend a boarding school in the nearest town. A teacher comes to prepare the girls and accompanies them until the moment of separation from their family. With particular photographic sensitivity, the directors capture the landscape’s allure and the intimacy of family life. These girls perform acts deeply connected to their land, such as eating the still-warm liver of a freshly killed reindeer or listening to long fairy tales in the warmth of the yurt before falling asleep. When a helicopter comes to pick them up and take them to the sterile classrooms of a school, the nostalgia for that wind-swept land echoes in their resigned gaze.