The other side of Roza Khutor

This video art is dedicated to Roza Khutor Ski Resort - a key object of the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi 2014. It is located at an altitude of 2320 meters in the village of Krasnaya Polyana at the foot of the Main Caucasian ridge. The area of 1820 hectares covers the northern, north-eastern and southern slopes of the Aibga Ridge. It is situated 40 kilometers from Sochi. It attracts 10500 visitors every day. Rescue teams, avalanche and lift workers, snow makers and snowcats work here 24 hours a day to support the work of 77 km of trails.

Tafedna. The village of men.

Tafedna is a small fishing village  located 134 km from Agadir, Morocco. Fishmen live and work here through the whole year. From dusk till dawn changing each other. Only big waves stop them from going into the Atlantic. 
They wake up at 4am and start taking wooden boats into the water with the help of tractors. Before they used to do it with donkeys. The open bay makes it difficult to start the sailing.They eat and sleep in boats, coming from time to time ashore to have a rest in small houses where they stock boats equipment. The white and blue houses make a lonely line on the beach. There are no women in this village. Fishmen's families are several kilometres away from the beach. Sometimes boys are coming down here to help to stick the bait. The fishmen are very simple. They eat simple food. They live simple lives. And they enjoy small. While living and working in pure beauty and fighting against the elements.

Agar-agar. Grass from the ocean. Trailer

Director  Evgenia Killikh

Director of Photography Kirill Ovchinnikov

Documentary

26 min

2014

The film tells us about hard physical work of those who maually gather red algae agar-agar, known as red gold of Morocco, on the Atlantic Coast. Agar-agar is a product obtained by extraction from red seaweed. It's a natural vegetable gelatine counterpart used in the food processing industry, especially wide - in the confectionery industry. Algae catches manually cut the plant from the ocean floor with a high risk for their lives spending sometimes 8 hours per day in the boat. They bring algae ashore and dry it in order to sell it later for a few dirhams to the state. For many in Morocco this is the only possible mean to earn their living.