Renowned Latvian director Viesturs Kairišs, celebrated for his work in film, theater, and opera, presents COHABITANTS—a poignant exploration of the Russian Old Believers community on Piirissaar, a secluded island nestled on the Estonian-Russian border.
We are pleased to announce that the short film directed by Viesturs Kairišs and produced by Esko Rips and Olga Hartšuk has been selected for the IDFA Competition for Short Documentary!
The film is set on Piirissaar, a tiny Estonian island in Lake Peipus, on the very border of Russia. The Russian Old Believers who inhabited the island appeared here 300 years ago, during the Great Northern War, fleeing from the religious reforms in the Orthodox Church and to avoid being mobilized in the Russian army.
As the waves have washed the island smaller and smaller, the community here has also fused over time, inevitably reaching the brink of extinction. However, the local culture and sense of life that developed in isolation from the rest of the "Russian world" has not yet completely disappeared from Piirissaar.
