Nonna Galetskaya

Abakan

Marina Kanadakova

CREE Caroline Damiens
email: caroline.damiens@inalco.fr.

    A cinema of one's own: Building/reconstructing Siberian indigenous peoples' identity in recent cinema: examples from Sakha (Yakutia) Republic and the Republic of Khakassia Caroline Damiens

This paper discusses indigenous cinema from Siberia and how this media is being used by Siberian minorities as a means to (re)build national identity following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Indeed, in recent years films made by and for indigenous peoples have flourished on the other side of the Urals. Coming from regions as diverse as the Tuva Republic (Antuf'eva 2012) and Buryatia [START_REF] Shagdarova | Burivud, ili kakoe kino snimayut v Buryatii[END_REF] as well as the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic [START_REF] Anashkin | Doroobo, kinne! Zdravstvuy, kino![END_REF][START_REF] Vanina | Sostoyanie kino ›Tyal baaryn tuxary‹ ›Balyksyt,‹ ›Aanchyk‹ i drugie yakutskie blocbastery[END_REF]) and the Republic of Khakassia [START_REF] Galetski | First-Ever Khakas Film Premieres in Abakan Russia[END_REF]), these films are very often low-budget, practically amateur video productions, that have nevertheless found their way to enthusiastic audiences. One short film even made it to the worldfamous Cannes Film Festival [START_REF] Beloborodov | Bair Dyshenov: Ya idu k bol'shomu buryatskomu kino[END_REF]. This phenomenon is linked to goings-on elsewhere in the post-Soviet space where recently independent states have used cinema to reconceptualize their new national identities. Numerous studies have examined post-Soviet cinema in these terms, analyzing in particular how it engages in the creation of new heroes [START_REF] Beumers | To Moscow! To Moscow? The Russian Hero and the Loss of the Centre[END_REF][START_REF] Larsen | National Identity, Cultural Authority, and the Post-Soviet Blockbuster: Nikita Mikhalkov and Aleksei Balabanov[END_REF]) and new myths [START_REF] Abikeeva | What is the Phenomenon of the Central Asian Cinema?[END_REF] or, more recently, using a postcolonial approach to explore it [START_REF] Abikeeva | Natsiostroitel'stvo v Kazakhstane i drugikh stranakh Tsentralnoi Azii i kak etot protses otrazhaetsya v kinematografe[END_REF]Kristensen, Mazierska and Näripea 2014). This article focuses on films from the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic and the Republic of Khakassia. Both republics are federal subjects of the Russian Federation and are located respectively in the Far East and the South of Siberia. They bear the name of the first nations that originally occupied-and still occupy-these lands: the Sakhas (also known as the Yakuts or Yakutians in Russian) and the Khakas, both of which are Turkic speaking 2 ethnic groups. Since glasnost in the 1980s, Sakhas and Khakas, along with other Siberian minorities, have experienced an ethnicity-based cultural revival [START_REF] Berre-Semenov | Renaissantismes et renaissance des peuples du Nord: Évolution de la question autochtone en République Sakha (Yakoutie) dans le contexte des mutations post-soviétiques[END_REF][START_REF] Nevolko | The Visualisation of Ethnic Theme in the Khakas Artists' Paintings and Graphic Work of Art[END_REF][START_REF] Nyssen | Traditional and Modern Khakas Conceptions of Sound and Music[END_REF]) that became especially intense during the years just after the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. In the cinematic field, however, this process has evidently extended into the first decades of the twenty-first century.

This paper asks what role cinema has played in this revitalization process. To explore the question, it is focused on feature films inasmuch as they are the ones most acclaimed by audiences and most likely to be released in theaters, sold on DVD, or informally exchanged in digital format. First I will examine why and how Khakas and Sakha filmmakers consider cinema to be a good vehicle for reinforcing identity. This part will be based largely on interviews conducted on-line during the summer of 2012 and on-site in Yakutsk in August and September 2012. Further, by investigating the content of Siberian indigenous cinema, I will show how, in both Yakutia and Khakasia, filmmakers are rethinking the supranational (Russo-Soviet) narrative, re-imagining geography and trying to reconnect with their own past. Finally, I will highlight the differences between Khakas and Sakha cinema by showing how these national 1 film productions can express a strong or a weak feeling of identity.

A brief history of Sakha and Khakas feature films

The first Sakha and Khakas features appeared quite recently on Siberian screens (Middle World in 1993 2 and Land of Our Fathers in 2008 respectively), in both cases after the Soviet Union ceased to exist. These initiatives were carried out by two studios with similar names: Sakhafilm and Khakasfilm. The former was created as a national film company sup- [2002][2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009][2010][2011][2012] the figure jumped to 25. 4 Following this success, a second major national film company was born, Almazfilm, which has since proven to be the most profitable and successful commercial attempt at a national cinema in the region, to such an extent that the director of the Yakutian box-office hit Path of Death, Anatoli Sergeyev, has spoken of it as a »revolution«: there's money to be made in indigenous films (Yakimenko 2008, 49). At present, Yakutian film production is extremely diverse, boasting a range of genres, from comedy and horror to art house and drama. In 2011, 17 locally produced films were released in Yakutia [START_REF] Vanina | Sostoyanie kino ›Tyal baaryn tuxary‹ ›Balyksyt,‹ ›Aanchyk‹ i drugie yakutskie blocbastery[END_REF], whereas only two appeared in Khakassia (Kurochka, pers. comm.). 5

Identity strengthening through film

Cinema is seen by many as a strong means for promoting national culture. From the late 1980s onward, the concept of a national cinema has been examined in a wide range of scholarship (Hjort and MacKenzie 2000;Vitali and Willemen 2006). In many cases, these scholars apply the 3 I will use the term »Yakutian« with reference to the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, all nationalities represented and »Sakha« with reference to Sakha nationality (etnicity).

4

For the same periods, seven documentaries were made before 2002 and 51 after.

5

Yuri Kurochka, online-interview by the author, August 4, 2012.

4 modernist approach [START_REF] Anderson | Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism[END_REF][START_REF] Gellner | Nations and Nationalism[END_REF][START_REF] Hobsbawm | The Invention of Tradition[END_REF] which claims that nation and national identities are constructions and the product of modernity. Anderson's concept of »imagined communities« has been particularly popular as it »can be usefully extended from print to cinematic cultures« (Hjort and MacKenzie 2000, 2). Nevertheless, it has been noted that this concept cannot fully »do justice to the internal diversity of contemporary cultural formations« and that »the contingent communities that cinema imagines are much more likely to be either local or transnational than national« (Higson 2000, 70, 73). This perhaps explains the emergence of these regional cinemas.

For Sakha filmmakers, film possesses a »simple language, more accessible and more popular than theater« (Arzhakov, pers. comm.). 6 It is additionally more economical because once the film is done, it can be sent to the other end of the world on a DVD, which is a simple and effective way to »transmit to the world one's own culture, traditions and view« (Romanov, pers. comm.). 7 Furthermore, it is also seen as a means for preserving the endangered culture of a minority (Kurochka, pers. comm.). It is in this vein that the Sakha Republic's president wrote the decree establishing Sakhafilm in 1992. According to the national film company's statutes, its aim is to make films »for developing and preserving the traditional cultures of the native inhabitants of Yakutia [the Sakha Republic], promoting those cultures through film and video« (Sivtsev 2005, 117). In a strategy typical of nation building, promoting cultures often means reinterpreting tradition, even inventing it [START_REF] Hobsbawm | The Invention of Tradition[END_REF], and the visual medium is expected to participate fully in this process.

The promotion of national culture through cinema often starts with the production company's name and logo, i.e. even before the production of films. Sakhafilm and Khakasfilm both obviously bear the name of the nationality they promote. Other film companies are also clearly desig- Apart from logos, films often exhibit many other identity markers. The first national element that attracts attention is language. It is seen by outsiders as denoting the absolute originality of Sakha cinema, its very quintessence (Anashkin 2006, 85). For insiders, it is an essential trait, the most important bearer of culture. The Sakha language has been classified as »vulnerable« by Unesco: most children speak the language, but it may be restricted to certain domains [START_REF] Moseley | Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger[END_REF]. Russian being neither the filmmakers' first language, nor that of the viewers, Sakha cinema has an »internal« market as its first target (Ivanov and Kirillim, pers. comm.). 8 Some filmmakers argue that it is a way to better understand what is being said, especially when it comes to humor, which proves to be quite untranslatable (Shchadrin, pers. comm.). 9 Sakha-language films are also wielded like a defensive weapon against invasive Russian language. »Everything is in Russian […] Many started to think: what's the use of Sakha language? I started to film in Sakha to ›counter‹ this feeling,« explains producer Alexander Danilov. »I want people to be proud of their language« (Danilov, pers. comm.). 10 For Khakas filmmakers, it is even more essential. The Khakas language has been largely abandoned 8 Nyurgun Ivanov and Anatoli Kirillim, interview by the author, September 3, 2012, Yakutsk. 9 Dmitri Shchadrin, interview by the author, September 10, 2012, Yakutsk.

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for the benefits of Russian. According to Unesco, the language is classified as »definitely endangered«: children no longer learn the language as a mother tongue in the home [START_REF] Moseley | Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger[END_REF]. Filming in their own language gives Khakas directors the feeling of participating in the preservation and revitalization of Khakas (Galetskaya, pers. comm.; Kanadakova, pers. comm.). 11 However, this concern for national languages can be found in other sites of the post-Soviet space, where language is not particularly at risk, such as Ukraine (Hosejko 2001, 371). It can thus be understood as a reaction against the dominance of Russian, a way to denote one's specificity.

Cinema also permits the display of culture-bearing items such as traditional objects, costumes, or musical instruments. Many films incorporate insistent shots of traditional tools and gestures (Middle World, Land of Our Fathers, The Moth), show traditional sports or dances (Black Mask), or integrate shamanic artifacts (Path of Death, Path of Death 2: Expiation) or the traditional Sakha tent (Cranes over Ilmen Lake); musical instruments are displayed (the Sakha khomus in Sakha Sniper and the Khakas chatxan in Land of Our Fathers) or played on the soundtrack (My Love, The Free Warriors); and national costumes are worn (Middle World, Land of Our Fathers, Maapa, The Free Warriors). All these items and gestures are put forward to reaffirm »the value of the things that surround [indigenous people] and that can serve as one of the factors for ethnic identification« [START_REF] Nevolko | The Visualisation of Ethnic Theme in the Khakas Artists' Paintings and Graphic Work of Art[END_REF](Nevolko , 1122)). These Siberian films are comparable with Central Asian films from the 1960s. Gul'nara Abikeeva notes that films made by Central Asian directors during the Thaw period showed a similar tendency to display a traditional way of life (Abikeeva 2006, 52). This concern for verisimilitude is a distinctive trait of national drama and cultivates an »ethnic atmosphere« (Smith 2000, 50). While acknowledging Hobsbawm's famous concept of »invented traditions« [START_REF] Hobsbawm | The Invention of Tradition[END_REF], Smith argues that the rediscovery and authentication of »pre-existing myths, symbols, values, memories and traditions of ›the 11 Nonna Galetskaya, online-interview by the author, July 22, 2012; Marina Kanadakova, online-interview by the author, August 5, 2012.

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people‹« serves to »locate the ›old-new‹ nation […] within its evolutionary ethnic framework« (Smith 2000, 48).

But the main »item« displayed in film is of course people themselves.

The list of Soviet fiction films depicting Siberian indigenous peoples is not very long. The Sakha and Khakas peoples were rather seldom represented on the Soviet screen. According to the Catalogue of films on Yakutia, until 1976 there existed only ten full-length fiction films presenting Sakha characters (and even then, some of these appeared only for a few minutes in supporting roles, in The Long Way, for example) [START_REF] Savvinov | Annotyrovannyi katalog fil'mov o Yakutii[END_REF]. Two more films from the 1980s can be added to this list. 12 As for the Kakhas, no inventory has been made so far. But more importantly, Siberian indigenous people are now calling for self-representations, images of and by themselves, not those constructed by outsiders. In the Soviet context, the national cultures of the USSR had had to perform a delicate balancing act between socialist and traditional values in accordance with the slogan »national by form, socialist by content,« which ultimately led to mere folklorization. In order to create a new image of themselves, indigenous peoples first needed to rediscover who they were and reinvent their identity. National film production started at a time, the 1990s, when the former Soviet Union was being shaken with national revivals. Influenced by other nationalities, the recent film school graduate Aleksei Romanov began questioning his own Sakha identity. »I am Sakha. What is special about me in terms of ethnicity? … What distinguishes me from a Mongol or a Tuvan? Based on this, I started a film« (Romanov, pers. comm.). In light of the post-Soviet context, this statement reflects the search for a cultural specificity that needs to be reshaped in the reconfiguration of the region (Maj 2009, 69). In terms of globalization, it can be read as a new emphasis on the local. Indeed, Sakha people and Sakha culture are the focus of Romanov's film Middle World. The film eschews the typical storyline in favor of presenting all sides of the life of a people (birth, marriage, etc.) in an almost encyclopedic way, as a first attempt at self-representation.

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More informally, people are often happy to see themselves existing on screen. »It was nice to see so many familiar faces,« expresses a viewer of Land of Our Fathers on a local Khakas Internet forum [START_REF] Khakasskogo | Khud. film Ada Chiri[END_REF]. According to some, it may even explain the local box-office success of Sakha cinema (Ivanov and Kirillim, pers. comm.). Film works like a vehicle that confirms the very existence of a people. Hence, the return of a feeling of pride and self-esteem at seeing one's own traditions and language being shown in a film alongside blockbusters originating from powerful and confident cultures such as the American, Russian, or French ones. Khakas filmmaker Marina Kanadakova says she chose to film the biopic of Khakas scientist Nikolai Katanov, Destiny of an Alien, 13 to encourage Khakas national pride (Kanadakova, pers. comm.). Sakha film producer Alexander Danilov compares his task with Hollywood's effort to promote patriotism (Kolbasina 2008a, 7). Journalist Marina Kolbasina is not afraid to speak of the »civic duty to make films about the best persons of our republic […] they allow us to be even more proud of our native republic« (Kolbasina 2008b, 44). All these assertions point to the increasing valuation of the local and the »familiar« in a more and more globalized and homogenized world.

Rethinking the supranational (Russo-Soviet) narrative

The Sakha and Khakas peoples want to exist on screen as well as in history. Their films often provide an alternate vision of the Russo-Soviet narrative. They demonstrate a desire to be fully integrated in this supranational narrative. By choosing Nikolai Katanov, a great man of Khakas history, Marina Kanadakova shows in Destiny of an Alien that indigenous people played a full part in the scientific history the of Russian Empire and in global history: »Thanks to people like Katanov, 13 Destiny of an Alien is actually half-documentary (interviews with academics), half-fiction (performed by actors). I chose to include it there as another Khakas feature in the corpus after Kanadakova explained her decision to incorporate fictional elements in it; she found documentary insufficient for expressing everything she wanted to say (Kanadakova, pers. comm.).

9 our people has a future and its full place in the sphere of world history« (Kanadakova, pers. comm.).

Many films, in particular Sakhafilm productions, express a desire to integrate Yakutians in recent Soviet history and emphasize their role in it. It is particularly striking in films commemorating important historical events such as Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War. 14 Both Cranes over Ilmen Lake and Sakha Sniper were commissioned by the Sakha Republic's president and government in honor, respectively, of the 60th and 65th anniversaries of the event. Both films emphasize the suffering endured by Yakutians, whether on the front lines or on the home front. By doing so, Sakha filmmakers and their official sponsors call for full acknowledgement of the Yakutian role in this victory. Their fiction films are augmented by the impressive figures of Yakutian snipers, victims of war, or decorated soldiers in the opening or closing credits. Black Mask, also a commissioned film, was made to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Russian police. The action takes place in Soviet times, just after the victory (which provides another opportunity to hear the names of many dead Yakutian heroes). The main character of the film is a Sakha police officer who manages to arrest a criminal gang terrorizing the whole Soviet Union. Here again, the closing credits inform the viewers that the film is based on a true story and provide a short biography of this everyday hero.

This emphasis on real events and the very fact that these films were made in conjunction with supranational commemorations is a way to bring to light new historical sources. Film is used to revise history. In this regard broad distribution beyond the borders of the Sakha Republic is vital. Cranes over Ilmen Lake was broadcasted on the all-Russian TV channel Kul'tura on February 4, 2008, marking a first for Sakha cinema.

This concern with revisiting history is common to many post-Soviet cinemas, particularly in reexamining the Soviet period [START_REF] Abikeeva | What is the Phenomenon of the Central Asian Cinema?[END_REF][START_REF] Balčus | Narrative Trends in Recent Latvian Fiction Film[END_REF][START_REF] Beumers | National Identity through Visions of the Past: Contemporary Russian Cinema[END_REF][START_REF] Laaniste | Conflicting Visions: Estonia and Estonians as Presented in the Cinema of 1990s and 2000s[END_REF]). In the newly independent 14

The Second World War.

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states films tend to rewrite the Soviet or pre-Soviet past through a »national perception of the world« [START_REF] Abikeeva | What is the Phenomenon of the Central Asian Cinema?[END_REF] or to establish a »›right way‹ of remembering historic events« (Laaniste 2010). In the case of Siberian indigenous peoples who remain part of the Russian Federation, however, such films express a desire for inclusion in Soviet and pre-Soviet history.

In revising history, these films also counter outsiders' stereotypes. One stereotype is the absence of native Siberians on Siberian land. Indeed, in films like Siberiade or Farewell-to refer only to milestones of Soviet cinema-Siberia is shown empty of indigenous people. This absence is reversed in some indigenous films where instead it is the Russians who are missing. Run, for instance, portrays the city of Yakutsk with no Russian inhabitants: all the characters are Sakha, speak Sakha. The entire environment is Russian-free: Sakha features on TV as well as in the background music. Films by Vyacheslav Semyonov, for example The Moth, also depict a life without Russians, although the action takes place in the Soviet context of a kolkhoz. In indigenous cinema, the absent figure has changed nationality.

In Russo-Soviet cinema, when Siberian peoples are represented, it is always by and for outsiders and in a stereotypical way. However, unlike Hollywood westerns where indigenous people were more often than not depicted as a brutal and fierce enemy, in Soviet movies, they were not rivals but peoples to be freed and enlightened by socialist progress. Some current indigenous filmmakers are very critical of what they perceive as a misrepresentation. For example, director Nonna Galetskaya, without naming any particular film, states: »We were then shown as uneducated savages, although we have our own ancestral culture with its own writing system,« (Galetskaya, pers. comm.). Most of the time, they criticize the lack of »soul« and the fact that they are represented as generic »peoples of the North« (Timofeyev, pers. comm.), 15 a statement that can be linked 15 Konstantin Timofeyev, interview by the author, September 8, 2012, Yakutsk. It must be noted that there are others who think differently and fondly remember the few films where indigenous peoples appear; and

to the habit of giving Siberian roles to actors originating from Central Asia in Russo-Soviet films.

Another stereotype that has been particularly robust in Soviet filmography is the advanced ethnic Russian, most of the time a Bolshevik, who saves the Siberian native from his own backwardness and integrates him or her into the dominant-predominantly ethnic Russian-society, as occurs in the Stalin-era film The Romantics. In recent Sakha and Khakas cinema, this process is reversed. In Cranes over Ilmen Lake and Sakha Sniper it is native Siberians who save the Russians (and the whole Soviet Union) by playing a decisive role in World War II. In Black Mask they save the Soviet Union from a terrorizing gang. In Land of Our Fathers Khakas adopt blond Russian orphans, assimilating them into their society.

Re-imagining geography

In addition to revising history, Siberian indigenous cinema serves as a tool for re-imagining geography. Closely linked to the cultivation of an »ethnic atmosphere« is the creation of an »ethnoscape« figuring the ancestral »homeland,« a landscape that mirrors the ethnic community by historicizing the territory through particular historical events or relics and monuments. More poetic than strictly factual, their authenticity is mainly »emotional and moral« (Smith 2000, 55). As well as other identity markers, films display locations that translate ethnicity, sometimes insistently like the long and numerous shots of the Lena River pillars in Cranes over Lake Ilmen. This spectacular rock formation has turned into a Sakha Republic national symbol and is used in the film to represent the fatherland that Sakha soldiers are leaving in order to join the front. Playing the same role, megalithic architecture is used in Land of Our Fathers both as a national marker and as the mythological place where the future mother of the Khakas people takes refuge when she is exiled. Focusing on this burial architecture allows for identification with a buried past through its some are convinced that a national (Sakha) cinema would have emerged sooner or later, had the Soviet Union lived longer.

most visible symbols and makes it possible to »recover […] the submerged landscape of a pre-Soviet and pre-Russian collectivity« (Anderson 1998, 64).

More casually, many well-known places in the city of Yakutsk are used as a set for contemporary Sakha teenage films (Looking for Joy, Run, Debt): the Main Street, The National Sakha Theatre, The Opera and Ballet Theatre, the War memorial, etc. Beyond that, these films offer an alternate vision of the republic's capital city. Usually mentioned in outsiders media as the coldest city in the world (with temperatures dropping to -50° C in the winter), in Sakha teenage movies Yakutsk is a sunny and trendy place where one can go shopping in the most fashionable boutiques, stay at five-star hotels, or go out to exclusive nightclubs and restaurants where pop stars are putting on a show. Judging from the beach location where the heroes of Looking for Joy are flirting with girls, Yakutsk looks more like Los Angeles or Miami than North Siberia! In these films, the Sakha Republic's capital city is a center where anyone can become a VIP. The films show tourists from surrounding villages and towns visiting and taking souvenir pictures of Yakutsk's memorable sites. In short, no need to go to Moscow in order to live a glamorous life or go sightseeing; Yakutsk is the place to be. Making their capital city an attractive destination is a way to reassert the value of their own geographic location. In doing so, these films shift the center eastward. This reconfiguration of the relationship of center to periphery at the Federation level must be correlated with the successful development of the Neo-Eurasianist political tendency in the Sakha Republic. Emerging after 1991 in an effort to reshape a national identity on the ruins of the Soviet Union, Neo-Eurasianism emphasized Russia's geographical position as a link between Asia and Europe. This special location, at the crossroads of civilizations, gives Russia a particular messianic role to play in the post-Cold War era, no longer at the periphery of Europe, but at the same time culturally closer to Asia. Although its political ramifications are diverse and sometimes contradictory, Neo-Eurasianist discourse rehabilitates national and religious diversity within the Russian Federation, fully acknowledging its Muslim and Turkic components (Laruelle 2007b).

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Consequently, Neo-Eurasianist ideas have developed in ethnically non-Russian regions such as the Tuva Republic, Buryatia, and the Sakha Republic, in all of which the argument of being at the crossroads of the Eurasian space is reinterpreted (Laruelle 2007b, 201). In the Sakha case, renegotiating the rhetoric of center vs. periphery has augmented the desire to associate more closely with Central Asian Turkic peoples and allowed both for an increase in distance from Moscow and emphasis on a regional hegemonic role (Laruelle 2007b, 203;[START_REF] Maj | Interpréter le dialogue interculturel entre Russes et peuples autochtones de la République Sakha (Iakoutie)[END_REF]). (Danilov, pers. comm.).

Once again, this statement echoes some new trends of Neo-Eurasianist thought: that Turkic populations represent a chance for the Russian Federation because they embody a »fusion« with the »Confuciano-Buddhist axis,« and are attractive because of their extreme dynamism and economic success (Laruelle 2007a, 92).

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It must be noted that horror is a genre almost absent from Russo-Soviet cinema.

14 By the Will of Genghis Khan, the first Yakutian super production, 17 directed by the current Minister of Culture himself, Andrei Borisov, is a biopic of the Mongol conqueror. Borisov, a dedicated Eurasiasnist (Laruelle 2007b, 201;Chusovskaya and Krasil'nikova 2009, 22), explains that Genghis Khan and the philosophy associated with him is a legacy of all Asian peoples. The film »reveals those deep strata of history when all Asians were initially united« (Chusovskaya and Krasil'nikova 2009, 23). This is the reason why the cast comprises representatives of so many Asian nationalities: Tuvan, Buryat, Sakha, Mongolian, Altaic, Khakas, Bashkir, Japanese, and Chinese, along with Russian and American.

According to the producer, the film promotes Tengrism, which used to be the religion of ancient Turks and Mongols (Ivanov, pers. comm.). 18 Some have even perceived the film as a Tengrist symbolism manual, seeing it as a kind of Turko-Mongol Da Vinci Code (Fedorova 2009, 28).

In short, By the Will of Genghis Khan clearly posits Sakha people and culture in the Asian sphere. By employing Tengrism, understood as a return to the origins, it serves the purpose of uniting Turkic peoples in a Neo-Eurasianist vision (Maj 2009, 79-80).

Reconnecting with the past

As noted earlier, films are used to question one's own identity. In this process, digging into the past is a way to reconnect with native traditions that had been interrupted by the Soviet period. Middle World, the first Sakha feature film, is clearly a search for a lost purity. It narrates the life and death of a typical Sakha according to Sakha traditions and rituals. Every step of life is depicted: birth, education, marriage, etc. Traditional occupations such as shaman or blacksmith are described. »With this film, one can learn a lot about our culture, our traditions« (Romanov 2012, pers. comm.). And not only outsiders can benefit from the learning. 17 It is the only project originating in the Sakha Republic to have been released in mass distribution in the Russian Federation and abroad.

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According to the director, his film contributed to help Sakhas themselves rediscover their own traditions.

At a time when people were celebrating weddings Soviet style, after having seen the film, people started to […] celebrate weddings according to our national traditions, to dress in national costumes […] People told me that. My film helped people rediscover traditions (Romanov, pers. comm.).

Having no record of »traditional« weddings after 1993, but no reason either to doubt the director's statement, we can only once again observe the level of influential power attributed to film in terms of nationbuilding, a power also ascribed to other post-Soviet cinemas, for instance in Ukraine (Hosejko 2001, 369).

Historical films are often good vehicles for national narratives. It has been noted that nationalisms have an investment in the past, memory being particularly subject to mobilization. As Anthony Smith argues: »no memory, no identity; no identity, no nation« (cited in Hayward 2000, 90). Land of Our Fathers narrates how all the Khakas men are killed at war while the women and children, among whom a new chief has just been born, are re-founding the nation in another place. Not content to offer an account of the origins of the Khakas, the film stresses this point by using old women to represent the ancestors in the opening and closing scenes of the film, a kind of missing link between past and present: they lead viewers to the origin. In a Neo-Eurasianist effort, the blockbuster By the Will of Genghis Khan reaches very far back in time to reunite the Sakha people with Asia. In addition, its hero has an Uryankhay mother, a tribe that is considered one of the ancestors of the Sakha people (Anashkin 2006, 90).

One simple way to reconnect with traditions and perpetuate them is to adapt works by national writers for the screen, a task that has been taken on by Sakhafilm. According to the company's chief executive, Sakha youth no longer read the national classics. It is therefore the national film company's responsibility to show these literature classics at local 16 schools in another format (Sivtsev, pers. comm.). 19 Film director Vyacheslav Semyonov, for his part, stresses the importance of adapting national writers in order to preserve the language (Semyonov, pers. comm.). 20

While not literature per se, the oral tradition is also taken as a source of inspiration for screenplays. The script of Land of Our Fathers comes from a folk story that was adapted for the stage before being made into a film (Galetskaya, pers. comm.). Maapa, the very first Sakha film, has its origin in the frightening Sakha legends that filmmaker Aleksei Romanov was told as a child.

These scary legends are fertile ground for recent Sakha horror films (Path of Death, Path of Death 2: Expiation, Naaxara, Paranormal Yakutsk). Sakha folklore is rife with evil spirits, restless and tormented souls that have found a new cinematic life after having kept silent for decades. All these teenage films, while targeting younger audiences, are actually forging links with the ancient traditions of their ancestors (Kolbasina 2008b, 42;[START_REF] Maksimov | Paranormal'nyi Yakutsk[END_REF]. Oral sources such as the Sakha epic, Olonkho, with its many heroes and stories, may serve as a great basis for films, but they are still seen as taboo by some (Ivanov and Kirillim, pers. comm.), which testifies of the vitality of the myths. Nevertheless, some filmmakers, mostly of the younger generation, use this material for their stories. Producer Konstantin Timofeyev knows that showing abaahy (Sakha evil spirits) will be a source a discontent for many, but he is not afraid to do so precisely because this is what invests Paranormal Yakutsk, the local version of Paranormal Activity, with »Sakhaness« (Timofeyev, pers. comm.). Interestingly, by their use of both traditional legends and the aesthetics of horror, they take their material not only from the national register but from the global register as well. Claiming influence from the Japanese and Hollywood horror industries, these films cross borders and end up being hybrid, »impure« objects. products local, and are ultimately transnational, reminiscent of other post-Soviet cinematographies [START_REF] Mazierska | Post-Communist Estonian Cinema as Transnational Cinema[END_REF].

While reconnecting with the past, these horror films also highlight a rupture in tradition. Every one of these films shows young people facing phenomena they cannot understand. When they realize they have disturbed an ancient order, most of the time by breaking a traditional taboo, they do not know what to do to restore normalcy. When they can, the young heroes have to consult elders, as happens in the two-part film Paths of Death. Otherwise they are damned for eternity for their transgression, as in Naaxara. In any case, these films show that there has been a discontinuity, a failure in transmission. They are used to reconnect with the tradition, but this tradition has now become impenetrable because »the cultural, identity and linguistic link with elders, and above all with ancestors, has been broken« (Le Berre-Semenov 2003, 399). They also engage in what Faye Ginsburg calls »mediating across boundaries,« that is »the mediation of ruptures of time and history-to heal disruptions in cultural knowledge, historical memory and identity between generations due to the tragic but familiar litany of assaults« (Ginsburg 1991, 104).

Strong and weak feeling of identity

When comparing films from Khakassia and Yakutia, the first striking difference one notices is the number of films that have been produced so far. Khakassia is just starting its national film industry; and the few films made so far have had a very ceremonious destiny: they are shown at local Houses of Culture, libraries, schools, etc. (Kurochka, pers. comm.). The situation is very different in the Sakha Republic, where films have been produced for almost 20 years, and the exhibition of them is more casual: they are released at local cinemas, mostly with success [START_REF] Vanina | Sostoyanie kino ›Tyal baaryn tuxary‹ ›Balyksyt,‹ ›Aanchyk‹ i drugie yakutskie blocbastery[END_REF]. The second divergence is that Sakha films do not necessarily demonstrate the same approach to their past and traditions. Khakas films regard their history with great reverence. This has even been criticized by Khakas viewers of Land of Ours Fathers on an Internet forum: »The speech seemed artificial, histrionic, bookish. Conversations should be true-to-life« (Forum Khakasskogo Naroda 2008). One could think that the filmmakers are filming this way in order to pay respect to a culture that has been disregarded for decades.

This kind of criticism or prudence seems to have been overcome by Sakha filmmakers. In this regard The Free Warriors is paradigmatic. The film is a comedy that makes fun of toyons (Sakha traditional chiefs) and booturs (epic warriors) in the manner of Monty Python's lampooning of the Arthurian Legend. Here, speech is by no means bookish and histrionic. On the contrary, when the chief ventures to speak in a serious and erudite way, his interlocutors do not understand him anymore and ask him to repeat his statement in an intelligible manner. Even the subtitles are only quotation marks during these scenes to stress the literary language. The film also plays with the traditional celebration Yhyakh (a national holiday in Sakha Republic), which an unorthodox rap singer surrounded by chorus girls is to host. It also shows no reverence for religion or the Sakha belief that nature is omniscient: the »all-knowing forest« answers directly the warriors' questions and loudly groans when someone breaks a branch.

The Free Warriors is not an isolated case, although other examples do not twist tradition so openly. The rude and rough loser who is the protagonist of Breathe is called Nyurgun, which is the name of the greatest hero of traditional Sakha epic tales. The heroic deeds of this cinematic Nyurgun are clumsy attempts to get by in life (rob a shop to feed his family, save his son from thugs representing evil-spirits). Breathe replays mythology (Filippova 2008, 63) However, the very fact that not all films are limited to showing the »positive« side of life is a sign that the Sakhas, although small in number, think their culture is not at risk. On the contrary, it demonstrates confidence in their cultural identity. A proof of this is that The Free Warriors was the 2010 Sakha box office hit in Yakutia. Being able to make fun of traditions or to criticize their society implies a secure sense of identity. In the Khakas case, films show nothing of the sort. They manifest the desire to exist and to be taken seriously, what Sakha cinema was doing 20 years ago with films such as Middle World. In this regard, Khakas films demonstrate much less confidence in the power of their cultural identity. This might be linked to the fact that in the Republic of Khakassia, Khakas represent only 12.1% of the population, while 81.7% of the inhabitants are Russian. Khakas are indeed a minority in the republic that bears their name. In the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, on the other hand, the Sakha people account for 49.9%, nearly half of the total population, with »only« 37.8% being ethnically Russian (Federal State Statistics Service 2011). Although Sakhas were a minority in their own republic 22 In his vision of homosexuality or addiction as »shameful« behaviors that should be hidden, film director Arzhakov expresses an opinion so widespread in the republic (as in the whole of the Russian Federation) that members of the Yakutian regional assembly (Gossobranie) addressed the issue by making »gay propaganda« illegal [START_REF] Adamov | Muzhiki protiv geev[END_REF], some politicians going so far as to view homosexuality as a kind of »fascism« coming from Europe (SakhaNews 2013). It must be noted that this view is far from being unanimous, and some people actively protest against such laws [START_REF] Stopzakon | Ostanovym gomofonyi zakon[END_REF].

20

during the Soviet period, their proportion of the total population has increased significantly since the end of the Soviet Union. 23 The differing degrees of confidence in the Khakas' and Sakhas' respective cultural identities can be correlated with these population statistics.

Moreover, as Ian Jarvie suggests, a national cinema is not sufficient to build a nation, but merely contributes to the process. Indeed, a national cinema arises in places with an already established clear national identity or a strong language and culture (Jarvie 2000, 80). Unlike the Republic of Khakassia, the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic seems to be such a place. At least since the beginning of the twentieth century, a sense of national identity has existed among the Sakhas and has continued to develop ever since, the Sakhas demonstrating »a determination to preserve their national culture« even during the radical changes of the 1930s (Forsyth 1992, 168, 319). All this makes them one of the »most original of Siberian peoples,« capable of asserting their individuality (Forsyth 1992, 381).

In spite of their differences, the Siberian indigenous peoples of these two Russian republics, »like a handful of indigenous people throughout the world, are using film both as a mechanism of self-expression and as a tool in the process of cultural revitalization and political recognition« (Fienup-Riordan 2003, 162). In this revitalization process, films prove to be good tools for strengthening national and cultural identity, promoting language and a traditional way of life. In addition, they play a significant role in creating narratives, whether national or otherwise. They revise history by rethinking the supranational narrative in order to be fully acknowledged as members of Russo-Soviet history. But they also reimagine geography in order to reassess the location of the center, moving it eastward toward Asia. Finally, indigenous filmmakers are attempting to (re)discover their own history by re-connecting with their 23 It is to be noted that Sakha (Yakutia) Republic numbers among its population other Siberian indigenous minorities: Dolgans, Evenks, Evens, Yukaghirs, and Chukchis, who are very few in number. They, too have seen their populations increase proportionally in the censuses following the collapse of the USSR, but they are not represented in recent Yakutian cinema.

21

past and traditions while at the same time revealing the rupture in contact with this past. Indeed, films fully participate in the process of »imagining the community,« offering this community a space, a time, and an image of itself. Even though the »imagined communities« of the Khakas and the Sakhas demonstrate differing levels of self-confidence, both use film to provide a more complex image of themselves and their present than the one imagined by outsiders.

The author wishes to thank Svetlana Atakova, Anna Nikolaeva, Dmitri Fedotov, and everyone else without whom this article could not have been written. This work was carried out with the financial support of the National Institute for Eastern Languages and Civilizations Graduate School, Paris.

  While Khakas national cinema is still in its infancy, as audiences await the next national feature film and have only a few documentaries to watch in the meantime (Khakasfilm has produced 11 films since 2003), Yakutian 3 cinema underwent a »boom« in 2002 with the commercial success of Black Mask, and that has since encouraged the creation of many other film companies and the acceleration of film production. If we refer only to the Sakhafilm catalog, we can observe that between 1993 and 2001 only nine fiction films were produced, while in the next decade (

	ported by rather meager governmental funds from the Sakha Republic.
	Khakasfilm, despite having been launched by »enthusiasts,« is likewise
	dependent on state subsidies for successfully completing its productions.
	1	My use of the term »national« follows its Russian usage, which is closer
		in meaning to »ethnic,« but reflects the Russo-Soviet custom of distin-
		guishing between nationality (ethnicity) and citizenship.
	2	The very first Sakha film, Maapa, was actually made in 1986: it is a short
		graduation film by Sakha director Aleksei Romanov.
		3

  This center shown in these films radiates out to the borders of the republic while the rest of the Russian Federation is notably absent. As I mentioned earlier, some films simply »erased« the Russian side of Yakutia (Run, The Moth, The Free Warriors) by not showing it. Life can go on without Russians. The geography imagined by these films turns its back on Russia (and Europe) and looks entirely towards Asia. The young heroes of Run escape the Yakutsk mafia for a sunny paradise located in China. Sakha horror films take Japanese horror as a model and a point of comparison[START_REF] Maksimov | Paranormal'nyi Yakutsk[END_REF] Yakimenko 2008, 47).

16

Almazfilm's latest project is the dubbing of Chinese films into the Sakha language. When asked why they've chosen Chinese and not Russian (or Euro-American) films, producer Alexander Danilov explains that The Chinese look like the Sakha, they have Asian faces […] When a Russian or a French person speaks Sakha, it is hard to believe

[…]

We are used to the fact that foreigners speak Russian […] If a Kazakh, Chinese person, or a Buryat speak Sakha, it is ok, I think

  . Other films simply depict a darker side of Yakutian life. Debt and My Love openly deal with troublesome issues such as alcoholism, rape, murder, or prostitution. Accused of showing Yakutians in a bad light in his films, director Sergei Potapov claims he is merely showing them honestly (Potapov, pers. comm.).21 But not everybody is ready to reveal what they perceive as the »negative side of life«(Everest 2008, 60), »negative« here being used to describe issues as diverse as »nonstandard« (in the Yakutian context) sexual orientation, diseases that are supposedly »shameful,« or criminal behavior. The reason given for this reluctance is that Sakhas are a »minority.« Majority peoples have the right to show another side of life [in their films] because everybody knows England, USA, France[…] They are so powerful that if they show homosexuality, drug addiction, there are no consequences. We are so few that we must protect ourselves[…] We have to show the positive side (Arzhakov, pers. comm.).22

Alexander Danilov, interview by the author, September 6, 2012, Yakutsk.

Urgent… Secret… Gubcheka (1982) and Semyon[START_REF] Dezhnyov | Directed by Nikolai Gusarov[END_REF].

Vladimir Ivanov, interview by the author, August 26, 2012, Yakutsk.

Sergei Potapov, interview by the author, September 5, 2012, Yakutsk.


Caroline Damiens

Cinema in Sakha (Yakutia) Republic: Renegotiating Film History

Cinema in Sakha (Yakutia) Republic: Renegotiating Film

The post-Soviet years saw the emergence of "regional" [1] cinematography in the Russian Federation's ethno-territorial units: Buryatia, Khakassia, Tuva, Bashkortostan and Tatarstan. The Sakha (Yakutia) Republic (RS [Ya]) is no exception, and a diversity of cinematic activities has flourished there since 1991. New Yakut [2] cinema distinguishes itself by its great variety. Almost every film genre is represented: comedy, art house, horror, drama or war film. The production has been quite important and stable for a few years: in 2010 about fifteen full-length feature films were made [START_REF] Anashkin | Choron, osokhai i kaverzy abaasy[END_REF], in 2011 seventeen were distributed in Yakut cinemas [START_REF] Vanina | Sostoianie kino 'Tyal baaryn tukhary', 'Balyksyt', 'Aanchyk' i drugie iakutskie blokbastery[END_REF]. Considering the population of the Republic (a little less than a million inhabitants), this is quite a significant figure. And the cinematic surge is no recent phenomenon: it is already more than ten years old and seems to be there to stay. The Russian-language specialized press has already shown an interest in this filmic case [START_REF] Anashkin | Doroobo, kinne! Zdravstvui, kino! Iakutskii kinematograf: siuzhety i kollizii[END_REF]) and even national TV broadcast a report on the Yakut sensation [START_REF] Deriagin | Iakutskaia fabrika grez brosaet vyzov Gollivudu[END_REF].

Alongside this new film industry, a "historicization" of cinema in Yakutia was initiated. A sort of "archeological move" toward a "pre-history" of the current film production was carried out, thanks to the publication of archives, the writing of new film histories and academic works or collections of Yakut film veterans' memoirs. Likewise, these last years, a National Film Archive and a Cinema Museum opened in Yakutsk. Therefore a whole range of memory work complements the birth of the industry. What relations does the current Yakut cinema maintain with its "pre-history"? On what grounds has the new generation of filmmakers emerged? What vision of film history is being set up after the fall of USSR? How does Yakut cinema renegotiate the terms of its integration into Russo-Soviet cinema? To examine these questions, this article will focus on institutions, which participated, through the production of a "prehistory", to the creation and the invention of current Yakut cinema in both its material and imagined dimensions. It will also concentrate on the careers of the key actors who established continuity with the Soviet film industry. Often, the same people have been involved in the creation of production studios and memorial initiatives, looking at the future through focusing on the past.

Professional organizations: between local anchoring and federal belonging

The National Film Company Sakhafil'm was officially born on June 23, 1992 from a decree (ukaz) by Mikhail Nikolaev, then president of RS(Ya). The company was established on the basis of the creative production unit (tvorcheskoe proizvodstvennoe ob"edinenie) Severfil'm. It is the only state film company in Yakutia:[3] various institutions of the region-state finance it and all its productions are commissioned. Although numerous private film companies were created from the 2000s onwards (Almazfil'm, Tuimafil'm, Arctic Cinema, Sindis, Detsat, Costa Production, Magdis Studio, etc.), Sakhafil'm unquestionably opened the way.

In 1992, when the company was founded, Vasilii Parfenov was appointed managing director and Aleksei Romanov took the post of artistic director. Both are former students of the Moscow-based All-Union State Film Institute (VGIK) and have been active in the Soviet film industry for years. Parfenov graduated in 1964 and worked mostly for Kazakhfil'm. He returned to Yakutia to work at Sakhafil'm. Romanov graduated in 1987, and is the first Yakut-Sakha who majored in directing. After his graduation, he moved back to RS(Ya) to establish a studio-he is the founder of the creative production unit Severfil'm in Yakutsk in 1990-in line with his idea that every people must be able to "tell the world its own culture, traditions, point of view on the world" [START_REF] Romanov | Interview by Caroline Damiens in Yakutsk[END_REF]. At the same time he started the production of his first full-length feature film Middle World (Seredinnyi mir/Orto doydu) conceived as an "ethnographic fiction" about Yakut identity.

When Soviet institutions handed over some political competences to RS(Ya), the new National Film Company Sakhafil'm took Severfil'm's place. Severfil'm provided an almost complete production studio. In addition, support-especially financial funding-from the region-state's institutions played a decisive role in the creation of Yakut cinema. Thanks to active film professionals on the one hand, and a studio-to-be already established on the other hand, the National Film Company could materialize and be effective almost overnight. The first Sakhafil'm production was Middle World-Romanov's film was released in 1993-already in production at the time the company was being founded. RS(Ya) Filmmakers' Union was also founded in 1992 (on December 4) during a meeting of cinema workers with the then new Cinema and Video Department of RS(Ya). The Union's functions are to set up and develop Yakut cinema in all its dimensions: organize film festivals, days of Yakut cinema, film presentations, and help young filmmakers. Its first secretary was, until 1995, Nikolai Santaev, another Yakut film professional who had graduated from VGIK (in 1967). Santaev made a career as a cameraman at Yakut television. The Filmmakers' Union remained an independent body until its integration in the Russian Filmmakers' Union in 2004.

Although subsequent to Soviet professional organizations and using the talent of people who were formed by the Soviet education system, these new Yakut institutions strongly insist on their national anchoring within the republic. They advocate the development of a strictly Yakut cinema, which, according to Sakhafil'm statutes, displays Yakut cultures,[4] traditions and views, at the same time as contributing to their preservation. This cinema is destined to the internal market, thus reinforcing the imaginary geography of the national republic. However, these institutions do not wish to break up with the Russian Federation. Still according to Sakhafil'm statutes, films ought to play a part in the preservation and strengthening of a unified Russian cultural space. Both national and firmly settled within the republic's borders on the one hand, integrated to federal territory on the other hand, professional institutions demonstrate an ambivalent wish for autonomy whilst remaining connected to the Russian space.

Nascent Yakut cinema relied on "ready-to-film" organizations (professional organizations, studios, unions) to get started. In order to fully account for the birth of Yakut cinema, technological advances in the 2000s (the development of the Internet and digital technologies involving change in production and distribution) must be taken into consideration. But they do not alone explain the inception of the industry in the 1990s. Then, it was the commitment and skill of a few people, combined with a strong political will (through passing laws and funding) which allowed the emergence of Yakut cinema.

Memorial institutions: building a national film heritage

Memorial institutions appeared in parallel with professional organizations. The State National Film Archive of RS(Ya) (GNKhKD, or goskinokhranilishche) was established on April 10, 1996. According to GNKhKD's website, their goal is to collect "every film (cinema or video) made or to be made on the history, culture and life of the peoples inhabiting Yakutia territory." The Film and Video Veteran Republican Organization (RO veteranov kino) launched the Film Archives' project. This group, created in March 1993, unites former "cinefication" (kinofikatsiia) workers in Yakutia. It was originally founded to organize help amongst impoverished film pensioners and originated the republican law "On cinematography" (passed on May 22, 1997: the law plans social benefits for former film industry workers). The region-state's government actively supported the Film Archives scheme with another law "On RS(Ya) audiovisual heritage", passed in 2005 (and completed by a presidential decree in 2010) legally binding producers to deposit one copy of their audiovisual documents in the Archives.

Ivan Zharaev and Vissarion Tomskii, both former heads of Yakut cinefication, are amongst the most active members of the Veteran Organization. The group initiated another enterprise, where veterans are particularly highlighted: the Cinema Museum of RS(Ya). It was instituted in the aftermath of GNKhKD and is indeed part of the Archives, its full name being Muzei kinematografii Gosudarstvennogo natsional'nogo khranilishcha kinodokumentov o respublike Sakha (Yakutia). In Yakutia, like elsewhere, the creation of a museum was concomitant to the inception of film archive storage, adding value to the collected material. The Cinema Museum opened in 2001[5] with a similar approach film memorial institutions take around the world, that is collect Yakut pioneers' accounts and non-film archives in order to create a national filmography. In addition, Ivan Zharaev has turned historian and wrote a national film history [START_REF] Zharaev | Zametki iz istorii kinematografii Iakutii: K 100-letiu so dnia pervogo pokaza kino v Iakutii, Saint-Petersburg, IC "Axsaan[END_REF]).

This "Yakut cinematheque" not only ennobles film veterans' work and practices, but also turns their work within Soviet cinefication into an active participation to the Soviet film industry. It operates as a Yakut "memorial site" (lieu de mémoire) where memory is being produced both in the real site of the museum and in the imagined site of film archives. The construction of a national heritage also proves a political gesture through the "repatriation" of images, which signifies taking back and controlling national memory (Bulane-Hopa 2011). Although this repatriation is for the most part symbolic (GNKhKD orders and purchases copies from archives located elsewhere), it can be compared to the economic sovereignty gained by the region-state in the 1990s with the quota policy on natural resources (gold and diamonds for the most part). Amid the criteria to enter the GNKhKD collections, the territorial dimension is essential and once again emphasizes the strong anchoring within the Republic's borders. The memorial institutions express a wish to gain greater independence from the Russian "elder brother" through repatriation of the audiovisual heritage and controlling of it. Alongside political action (RS[Ya] declared its state sovereignty in 1990), they operate as a declaration of sovereignty on the visual level.

Festivals: relocation in the Arctic space and integration of Soviet heritage

To address the question of festivals, a detour from the transition period of the 1990s into the present is needed. The Yakutsk International Film Festival has indeed become an institution in its own right, both in terms of film diffusion and filmmakers' recognition. After the first festival on republican scale in September 2011-"Cinema of the Arctic"-a change in dimensions occurred two years later, when the festival became international. From 2013 onwards, thanks to connections forged with foreign festivals (Toronto "ImagineNative" Festival in Canada, Inari "Skábmagovat" Festival in Finland), the Yakutsk Film Festival can take pride in showing films from around the world while centering around the Arctic region. Indeed, many films in competition come from circumpolar countries: the Russian Federation, Canada, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Denmark, etc. This extension of the territorial anchoring to the Arctic sphere can be seen as a move beyond a strictly national vision. That national vision of territoriality happened earlier, during the immediate post-Soviet years, in a historical period more favorable to self-assertion. But this de-centering towards the North is also a way to find one's own place in the global age. This relocation in the northern space, however, does not break up continuity with the Russian geographical space. According to Andrei Borisov, then RS(Ya) Minister for Culture, the 2014 Film Festival underlines "Yakut cinema's integration into Russian and world cinema" [START_REF] Anon | Vtoroi iakutskii medzhunarodnyi kinofestival' provedut pod znakom integratsii iakutskogo kino v rossiiskii i mirovoi kinematograf[END_REF]. This integration into Russian cinema can be interpreted as a sign of regaining control from the federal center at the time of Vladimir Putin's arrival at power at the beginning of the 2000s. It is sufficient to remember that in 2009 the RS(Ya) Parliament "freely accepted" removing the article claiming state sovereignty from the Republic's constitution [START_REF] Maj | Internationalisation with the use of Arctic indigeneity: the case of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russia[END_REF]. As a matter of fact, the dual direction of Yakut cinema's integration (into Russian and World/Arctic cinemas)[6] is a way to reintegrate the Russian fold whilst at the same time withdraw from it. Such a move allows Yakut cinema to gain an international visibility. At the same time national (Yakut), transnational (integrated into the Arctic sphere) and sub-national (within the Russian space), Yakut cinema relocates itself in a global context. Doing so, it does not reject its Soviet heritage. The 2014 Film Festival presented a contemporary selection interspersed with Soviet films with the "Nashi v kino" (Ours at the Cinema) program that consisted of films taken from what I call the "Yakut Soviet filmography": a series of films shot during Soviet era with Yakut actors and/or on a Yakut theme. [7] It should be noted that the first festival, "Cinema of the Arctic", held in 2011 already presented such a retrospective. This detour demonstrates that the Soviet heritage is being fully integrated into the new Yakut cinema. The fabrication of the Yakut Soviet filmography did not appear in the 2000s, but dates back to the 1970s. The Yakut Soviet filmography was constituted through film festivals organized in the Communist Bloc within the framework of the "Days of Yakut literature and art." Over time, these festivals established a national film repertoire. As early as 1964, the cameraman Nikandr Savvinov,[8], the first Yakut film professional, began to list Soviet films on Yakutia [START_REF] Savvinov | Annotirovannyi katalog fil'mov o Iakutii. Upravlenie kinofikatsiii pri Sovete ministrov YaASSR[END_REF]. Updated in 1976, his inventory amounted to 10 full-length feature films and 85 documentaries. Once established, the Yakut Soviet filmography was converted into a "national repertoire" that circulated in the course of time. It now functions as an important part of the "pre-history" of the new Yakut cinema under construction. This integration of Soviet heritage can also be found within films through homages or references. For example, Sniper Sakha (Snaiper Sakha), Sakhafil'm's foremost production for 2010, can be read as a homage to this filmography. Firstly, because the film uses veteran Yakut actor Spartak Fedotov, who played the role of the Yakut soldier in the 1963 Soviet war film The Third Rocket (Tret'ia raketa, Belarusfil'm). Secondly, because it refers to another Soviet Yakut actor, Afanasii Fedorov, impersonating the Yakut sniper Togo in the 1974 war film The Flame (Plamia, Belarusfil'm).

An interesting point to note about the "Nashi v kino" program at the 2014 Yakutsk Film Festival is that it was not limited to the Yakut Soviet filmography.

It included post-Soviet films, such as

The Horde (Orda, 2011; starring Innokentii Dakaiarov, Fedot L'vov, Aleksei Egorov, Gennadii Turantaev) and White Moss (Belyi iagel', 2014; starring Petr Basnaev, Irina Mikhailova, Efim Stepanov, Galina Tikhonova, Matrena Kornilova), employing Yakut actors (although not impersonating Yakut characters) and even non-Russian production, such as the French film Shaman (Chamane, 1996;starring Spartak Fedotov). Thus the program does not establish a discontinuity between Soviet and post-Soviet cinema, or between Russian and international cinema. New Yakut cinema posits itself in a longer timeframe that is not limited to strictly national films. In this timeframe, former Yakut workers of the Soviet cinema industry (in the present case, actors) are fully recognized as professionals actively participating in this industry. The relationship to the Soviet film heritage engages in a reconfiguration of the relationship with the center: a reconfiguration both "towards the outside", that is the Russian Federation (Yakut professionals' active participation in Soviet cinema) and "towards the inside", that is the Republic (the creation of a patrimonial film repertoire).

Writing a "native" film history

Alongside this constitution of a film patrimony, the Yakut Soviet filmography is closely associated with the writing of a "native" film history, native in the sense of "local" (not necessarily being indigenous in the ethnic meaning of the term). In parallel to new memorial institutions (Cinema Museum, Film Archives, festivals), new film histories are being written. Those new Yakut film historians [START_REF] Sivtsev | Stanovlenie kinematografa v kul'ture Iakutii[END_REF][9] Zharaev 2011) date the arrival of cinema in Yakutia to 1911. The publication of Zharaev's book on film history in Yakutia in 2011 coincides with the centenary of the event. It thus celebrates a commemoration on republican scale. By so doing, this native film history does not align itself with Russian film history or any other one. It produces its own timeframe. Furthermore, this timeframe creates no discontinuity between Soviet and post-Soviet eras, nor between pre-Revolutionary and Soviet cinema. In this native film history, Soviet heritage is essentially treated from the point of view of Soviet cinefication and based on accounts and memoirs of local professionals, especially ambulant projectionists (kinomekhanik). But historians also point out the importance of amateur cinema, seen as a cinema strictly entrenched in RS(Ya)'s territory.

Amateur cinema as such appeared in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Some informal screenings took place as early as 1961. Amateur filmmakers rapidly organized themselves, gathered and mingled with film professionals, who were invited to screenings in order to provide advice. In 1965 the first amateur "festival" (smotr-konkurs) was established in the Yakut ASSR under the auspices of the Yakut Regional Committee of Trade-Unions and the Cinefication Direction. Yakut professionals were present as members of the jury panel: the cameraman Nikandr Savvinov, the scriptwriter Lev Gabyschev[10] and the television cameraman Nikolai Santaev. The films were not restricted to family films. On the contrary, they demonstrated a wish to move beyond the amateur genre: documentaries, film sketches, animation. Some amateur "studios" were established in Yakutsk and others regions. They can be considered as the "ancestors" of today's studios. Altogether more than 350 amateur films were made. Today they form a non-negligible part of the Yakutsk Film Archive collection. In 1970 an Amateur Filmmakers' Club (Klub kinoliubitelei) was established under the aegis of the Cinema Committee of the Yakut Regional Committee of Trade-Unions. Soviet amateur cinema production was institutionalized and even sometimes semi-professionalized. Yakut amateur filmmakers were occasionally in charge of the filming of official events (such as the first visit in Yakutsk of a governmental delegation from the Mongolian People's Republic). Thanks to their connections with film institutions, amateurs could even take part in professional shootings (for example during the filming of Mosfil'm production Urgent… Secret… Gubcheka [Srochno… Sekretno… Gubcheka, 1982] through the intersession of Yakutia ASSR Goskino and the Cinema Committee of the Central All-Union Committee of Trade-Unions).

It is therefore a whole "native" film production that has developed outside of the usual film industry channels. Because it expanded within the territory of the Yakut ASSR, amateur cinema has occupied a unique place in Yakut film history. Usually neglected in traditional film histories, Yakut amateur cinema, on the contrary, has attracted the attention of film historians. Their focus on this cinema entrenches Yakut film production in a longer timeframe. This indicates an endeavor to de-center film history. It is no longer seen from the point of view of Moscow, but taking Yakutia as a center. By so doing, recent film histories [START_REF] Sivtsev | Stanovlenie kinematografa v kul'ture Iakutii[END_REF][START_REF] Zharaev | Zametki iz istorii kinematografii Iakutii: K 100-letiu so dnia pervogo pokaza kino v Iakutii, Saint-Petersburg, IC "Axsaan[END_REF]) contrast with those written during Soviet era [START_REF] Kletskin | Kino v zhizni iakutian[END_REF][START_REF] Savvinov | Yakutiia-kinos"emochnaia ploshchadka[END_REF], which inscribed film history in Yakutia in Russian film history and made it start with the October Revolution and the arrival of the Bolsheviks. For the new Yakut historians, there is no significant difference between amateur and professional filmmakers as they all worked for the emergence of Yakutia on screen. The most important thing for those historians is the production of films on Yakut territory. They highlight a "native" cinema that has developed concurrently with Soviet cinema. In their writings, this "native" cinema demonstrates autonomy in artistic creation within a nationalized, de-centered, sovereign film history settled in its own timeframe and not viewed as the product of a post-Soviet discontinuity. In this regard, the rewriting of film history can be interpreted as a replication of the new relations RS(Ya) government with the federal center in the 1990s by means of bilateral agreements and treaties widening political and economical authority of the Republic in the aftermath of RS(Ya) declaration of state sovereignty (September 27, 1990) and the collapse of Soviet Union.

Film dubbing in Yakut language: the return of a Soviet practice? Today the majority of Yakut films are in Yakut language, subtitled in Russian in order to be understood by non Yakut-speaking persons, although a substantial part is shot directly in Russian. Language operates as an important marker denoting the specificity and originality of Yakut cinema. It also functions as a response to the hegemony of Russian language [START_REF] Damiens | A Cinema of One's Own: Siberia Indigenous People Identity Building/Reconstruction in Recent Cinema. Examples from Sakha (Yakutia) Republic and the Republic of Khakassia[END_REF]). In the 2010s, some projects of dubbing into Yakut language appeared: the director of the newly built multiplex Cinema Center (Sinema Tsentr) announced his plan to dub Russian and international films while his competitor, the director of the oldest cinema in Yakutsk, the Central ( Tsentral'nyi; he is also CEO of the film production company Almazfil'm), started the dubbing of the Chinese TV series Genghis Khan (Chingiskhan, CCTV 2004) in 2012. Thus they renew a practice dating from the 1930s, when subtitling began in Yakutia. The majority of spectators then did not understand Russian. The practice of subtitling persisted until 1969, when the Council of Ministers of the Yakut ASSR ordered film dubbing into Yakut language. Dubbing was performed until the mid-1980s, when political institutions put an end to it and funding ceased. The reason given was that the majority of the population understood Russian then. The total number of Soviet films dubbed into Yakut language varies in different sources from 98 (Zharaev 2011:196) to over 200 [START_REF] Tomskii | Interview by Caroline Damiens in Yakutsk[END_REF]Sivtsev 2005: 94). In each case, it is a small proportion of Soviet films (between 4 and 9 per cent) that was dubbed.

The decision to reestablish this practice whilst the Yakut population understands Russian (the very reason to renounce dubbing in the 1980s) expresses an aspiration of visibility (or rather audibility) of Yakut language for its speakers as well as non-speakers. Beyond the cultural expression communicated by films on Yakut themes shot in Yakut language, dubbing Russian and foreign films indicates that Yakut culture is compatible with a global culture and not confined to a particular era or territory. In a more down-to-earth manner, it can also be used in order to strengthen language use (Yakut language, although not endangered, is described by UNESCO as vulnerable). In this case, it is the symbolic dimension of language which is being asserted, as there is no practical purpose when RS(Ya)'s population is largely Russian-speaking. It has to be noted that no republican institution supports the initiative so far. Only private companies consider such a project, which makes its implementation even more difficult. Besides, the lack of a necessity of dubbing is the source of a consensus deficit on the subject within Yakut society. The context is therefore very different from the Soviet period. Dubbing then benefited from the Soviet language policy. Current projects, supposing that they are achieved on a regular and continual basis, lie within the scope of globalization and at the same time act as a reaction to Russian language hegemony.

Conclusion: decentering cinema and renegotiating imperial relations

Yakut cinema has emerged in the 1990s on the ashes of the Soviet regime and in the aftermath of the declaration of state sovereignty of RS(Ya). Therefore it must be related to the reconstruction of national identity that was expressed at the same period. The strong support of local political authorities to the inception of a national cinema is a key factor. However, Yakut cinema's birth and development is best comprehended in terms of transition rather than as a discontinuity with the Soviet era. Cinema professionals, particularly those involved during the transition period, have ensured continuity and operated as a bridge between both eras. Drawing on the first generation of Yakuts graduating from the Film Institute (VGIK) in the 1960s-active, although in small numbers-, a new Yakut cinema has emerged in the 1990s.

This new cinema seeks to fully exist without denying the legacies of the past. On the contrary, it undertakes a renegotiation of the terms of its integration into Russo-Soviet cinema where Yakut cinema is considered an active participant in the Soviet film industry rather than a mere by-product. Both creating (through film production) and managing (through the control of the images of the past) a national vision, the nascent Yakut film industry aspires to "visual sovereignty" [START_REF] Raheja | Reservation Reelism. Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty, and Representations of Native Americans in Film[END_REF], at least in a symbolic dimension. Although institutions (professional organizations, museum, archives, festival), as well as the history they contribute to write, emphasize a strong local dimension, advocating a specific Yakut identity, they nevertheless do not cut themselves off other geographical spaces, be they historical (Russian space) or global (Arctic space). As a result, the center-periphery relation within the Russian space is reconfigured. History and film are de-centered, thus renegotiating the relations to the imperial and historical center.

Caroline Damiens Inalco, Paris

Notes 1] "Regional" is here in inverted commas as Yakut cinema is thought of more as a "national" cinema in Sakha (Yakutia) Republic. The term echoes the Russian word natsional'nyi which refers both to the main ethnic group of the Republic, the Yakuts-Sakhas, and to the territory of the Republic within the multiethnic Russian Federation. It is expressed in the names of the institutions: National Film Archives on RS(Ya) (Gosudarstvennoe natsional'noe khranilishche kinodokumentov o respublike Sakha [Yakutiia]-GNKhKD), National Film Company Sakhafil'm (Gosudarstvennaia natsional'naia kinokompaniia "Sakhafil'm"), for example.

2] The word "Yakut" will be used in this article to refer to the citizens of the multi-ethnic RS(Ya) as a whole and not only to members of the Yakut-Sakha ethnic group, as it is the way local film professionals name the phenomenon. This being said, it should be noted that Yakuts-Sakhas form a majority of those film professionals.

3] Although formally an independent body, its director, Stepan Sivtsev, considers it a state company.

4] Sakhafil'm statutes advocate the development and preservation of traditional cultures of Yakutia's indigenous peoples, emphasizing the plural. But the other peoples, especially small-number (malochislennye) indigenous peoples (Chukchis, Evens, Evenks, Yukagirs, Dolgans), are very much, if not completely, unrepresented in new cinema. This fact is reflected in the very name of the company, which emphasizes "Sakha-ness".

5] The Cinema Museum has not yet found a definitive address and is currently split up between two locations in Yakutsk.

6] Another direction toward the Asian space appears in the films themselves. It must be linked to the successful development of the neo-Eurasian political tendency in RS(Ya) [START_REF] Damiens | A Cinema of One's Own: Siberia Indigenous People Identity Building/Reconstruction in Recent Cinema. Examples from Sakha (Yakutia) Republic and the Republic of Khakassia[END_REF]. 7] Films from the "Yakut Soviet filmography" were produced by the RSFSR or Soviet Republican studios, as there were no studio devoted to Siberia or the North in Soviet film industry. They include such films as: Aerograd (Ukrainfil'm-Mosfil'm, 1935), Traces on Snow (Sledy na snegu, Lenfil'm, 1955), Way to the Sea (Doroga k mor 'iu, Mosfil'm, 1965), Morning of a Long Day (Utro dolgogo dnia, Riga Studio, 1968), Secret of the Ancestors (Taina predkov, Tadzhikfil'm, 1972), Urgent… Secret… Gubcheka (Srochno… Sekretno… Gubcheka, Mosfil'm, 1982), Semen Dezhnev (Svedlovsk studio, 1983). 8] 1933-1993. Savvinov graduated from VGIK in 1962 as a cameraman. He worked as a correspondent

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