Jaroslava Panáková received her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology at St. Petersburg State University in Russia and MA in documentary cinema at FAMU Prague, Czech Republic. Since 2001 she has been studying indigenous peoples of Polar Russia. She combines her fieldwork with filmic approaches. Her short film “The seagull flying against the wind” (2005) was screened at the IFF in Jihlava and at the Oneworld festival. Her medium-length film “Being a tourist at home” (2009) participated in the 2009 East Silver market in Jihlava and in 2010, and won first prize at the TOCOCU festival in Lisbon. Her feature film, Five Lives (2016), was claimed “the best doc on the survival of indigenous peoples” at the XXX PÄRNU Film Festival.
Yupik Eskimo from the hamlet New Chaplino (Chukotka, Russia) – According to the local people, the dead can return to the realm of the living up to five times. This essay film on life, death, and possible return poses the universal question: how do you confront your own end?…