Arctic Film Festival

10.00–11.05, Screening Room 3

Bear Islands / Medvědí ostrovy (CZ 2010, 62 min, dir. Martin Ryšavý, EN subtitles)

A poetic documentary from the Russian Arctic. A group of men set out on a journey on the frozen surface of the East Siberian Sea and after a short travel they arrive at an abandoned meteorological station on Four-Columns-Island. They stay there for a few days, hunting and talking together. In the snowy landscape, people’s memories intertwine with the memories of old abandoned buildings. The place where time stopped a long time ago comes to life again with the visit of men and through film. When the men leave the station, it remains the same in its snow immobility, but the viewer has experienced its present and past. The film is a portrait of the landscape, its past and the man in it. In the film Bear Islands, Martin Ryšavý builds on his previous projects dealing with the Russian Far Eastern Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The film focuses on people from the most remote part of this area, which is the Nizhny Kolymsk District, especially the inhabitants of the polar bear reserve, located on the Bear Islands in the East Siberian Sea at the mouth of the river Kolyma.

11.05–12.00, Screening Room 3

Czech Scientists in the Melting Arctic / Čeští vědci v tající Arktidě (CZ 2021, 52 min, dir. Zdeněk Zvonek, EN subtitles will be made by FAMU)It is no longer a secret that human activity has a significant share in global warming. Although nature in the Arctic is minimally affected by humans, climate change is most noticeable here. The climate is changing periodically, and understanding the ongoing changes is essential for the world’s sustainable development. In the document, we set out for Svalbard, where a group of Czech scientists deals with the process of global warming. The constant rise of the average annual temperature, the loss of sea ice, the disruption of the ecosystem of many species – can this process still be stopped? The experts are trying to answer this question in a way that is understandable to a wide audience.