Film Forum

Living in a yurt in frozen, end-of-the-earth Siberia, an Arctic indigenous couple, Nanook and Sedna, are self-sufficient, aided by their sled-dog and an occasional visitor. But their lives are changing: ice-fishing is not as productive, the ice is melting earlier each year, and wildlife is struggling to survive. They differ on whether or not to make amends with their estranged daughter, Ága, who left this remote tundra years ago to work in a diamond mine. When Sedna falls ill, Nanook embarks on an arduous journey to find her. Staggeringly photographed in widescreen (“Director Milko Lazarov and his cinematographer Kaloyan Bozhilov never cease to amaze.” – Screen Daily) and suffused with ethnographic detail and empathy for the traditions of its isolated characters, ÁGA is an immersive, one-of-a-kind visual experience.

BULGARIA / GERMANY / FRANCE    2018    96 MINS.    IN SAKA (aka YAKUT) WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES    BIG WORLD PICTURES

Reviews

“An older Inuit couple are the last members of their ethnic group living on the ice in Milko Lazarov’s handsome paean to a dying culture… capturing the timelessness of a lifestyle. The screenplay’s simplicity is enriched by memorable images whose stillness adds to the overall aura of a period coming to an end. Not just the vast white plain, but jagged rocky outcrops that are only seen late in the film, as if forming a boundary to the edge of the world.”
– Jay Weissberg, Variety

“A winning combination of the cozily intimate and the sublimely epic.”
– Neil Young, The Hollywood Reporter

“Director Milko Lazarov and cinematographer Kaloyan Bozhilov never cease to amaze.”
– Screen Daily