NIGHT COUNTRY

LOGLINE

Abkhazia is plunged into darkness due to lack of electricity. The population of the republic, which never recovered after the war, is divided by a conflict between the cryptocurrency miners and ordinary people.

TRAILER

SYnopsis

We begin our journey, gradually approaching the moment when the war that reshaped Abkhazia's history began nearly 30 years ago. A strange hum permeates the air. From the darkness of a city without electricity, people emerge — some silent, others talkative and chatty. They can be seen both in the countryside and the city, by the roadside, and on trolleybuses. The subject of cryptocurrency mining leaves no one indifferent; it has woven itself into the fabric of daily life, giving people a sense of purpose. As we follow these individuals, we also observe the proud, independent, and beautiful nature, mirroring how the Abkhazians wish to be perceived. Children and the elderly, cows and dogs, women and men become the heroes of this story, with the miners at its core—symbolizing the conflict that divides society. While this narrative is localized, it reflects a broader historical and social dichotomy: some seek to maximize their gains, often through dubious means, while others find themselves in increasingly dire situations because of these actions. A myth is reborn and digitalized. Yet, unlike the luminous Sasrykva of the Nart epic who brought warmth and light to the people, the self-expanding anarchy of mining creates an ever-widening chasm between existence and the digital, nature and machine, traditional folklore, and the greedy entropy of cryptocurrency mining.

Director's intention

On a November evening in 2020, having arrived in dark and gloomy Sukhum to take a break from the bustle of St. Petersburg and study (that year I entered the workshop of A. N. Sokurov), I did not immediately understand how this mysterious land greeted me. The central square of the station was illuminated only by the headlights of cars rushing past. Then it seemed to me that the darkness looked organic, and I asked almost no questions. In the morning, when the sun illuminated the mountains and the surface of the beautiful sea, I was able to calmly walk around the city. It was then that I noticed that there was no electricity in the city. When I was informed about the reasons for his absence, I decided to look into it - I brought a team and started filming.

The story was initially interesting to me due to the paradoxes that I observed during filming. From an obsession with the contrast between the beauty of the wild landscape and cryptocurrency mining, which grew into an Abkhazian phenomenon due to low electricity prices, the idea for the film arose and the future 4 expeditions became possible.

I started filming almost immediately. But what lay on the surface turned out to be only a small part of history, rooted in the past, which needed to be studied in order to understand the present. There was a social conflict in which miners were an absolute evil for ordinary people. The high energy consumption of crypto farms left the entire country without electricity. This kind of rift is very illustrative in both socio-political and cultural significance. Not long ago, the people of the republic rallied around the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992-1993 and subsequently gained independence. Against the background of social stratification created by the spirit of the times and the tragedy of an entire country seemingly abandoned by God, a new, more complex background of the narrative began to emerge.

We turned to the pre-revolutionary era, when everything was completely different, and the Soviet era, which was also the source of subsequent contradictions in many territories. Even there, the portrait of this region is colorful and alive, despite the black and white footage. Surprisingly, he turns pale and fades in the frames of the color, already later chronicle of the end of the 20th century. These memories provide us with the necessary material for understanding the traditional way of life, which has been replaced by technology, as well as understanding the consequences of some human decisions.

The miners themselves believe that the republic had a chance of recovery if cryptocurrency mining were legalized. At the moment, cryptocurrency mining in Abkhazia has almost completely stopped. So in the film we can observe the very flowering of the phenomenon.

The film contains references to Prometheus, who in some ways can be compared with the hero of the Nart epic of the Abkhazians - Sasrykva. This image personifies the failed destiny of the luminous hero, who did not realize the opportunity to bestow goodness and light on people.

This poetic journey is either like a pursuit of the edge of the night, in an attempt to peer into it, to describe its terrifying features and images that it draws, or like an escape from the all-consuming darkness to the light, to the tops of the mountains, to people who have not lost their humanity.

I would like to leave space for the viewer to read freely, excluding deliberate moralizing. However, my personal impulse can still be read through artistic techniques. Now more than ever, it is important for me to give life to the film, to give people the opportunity to look at a place that few people know about, to see what a country looks like that has not recovered after the war.

Producer's statement

This project captivated me immediately, as soon as Andrey, a current student of Alexander Sokurov, described it in a phone call from Sukhum in December 2020. Sergei Dyoshin, from the Russian distribution company KARO.Art, recommended that he contact me with this project. That's how it all started. The situation in Abkhazia itself, the entire setting, as well as Andrey’s vision was something I had never heard of. This was a new side of the cryptocurrency industry for me. Finding himself in Abkhazia as a traveler, Andrey quickly decided to assemble a small film crew, took out a bank loan and began filming. I joined the project in February 2021. Next were four more filming blocks, when Andrey returned to Abkhazia to finish filming the material.

This picture is a ‘creative documentary’ and is not a reportage of the situation happening with the Abkhazians. This is the author's observation, which in poetic form tries to tell about the past, present and future of this amazing country.

The cameraman on the project was Mikhail Pashkulsky, who grew up in a family of artists and studied visual art from an early age. Mikhail studied in the camera workshop of Alexander Vasilyevich Burov at the School of New Cinema. Dmitry Novoseltsev took on the functions of editior. From 2019 to 2021, Dmitry worked in the magazine “Seance”, and also acted as an editor on the project “Nobody Who Defeated You” (2021), dir. Lyubov Arkus (Rotterdam Film Festival IFFR 2022, Cinema Regained section; nomination for the Golden Eagle 2022 (best non-fiction film; nomination for the Nika Award 2022 (best non-fiction film).

Abkhazia is a partially UN-recognized republic that is in dire need of humanitarian assistance and government financial support. Its residents turned to cryptocurrency mining as a replacement for basic income. I am convinced that human imagination is also responsible for these realities. I would like to believe that this complex and ambitious project will highlight the topic of crypto-anarchism in Abkhazia and draw attention to what can strengthen and unite this nation, and not divide it.

Mining income is almost impossible to predict; it depends on too many variables: the political situation, the price of the cryptocurrency, the number of operations, the type of equipment and the blockchain. But the basic rule of crypto income is simple: the cheaper the electricity, the higher the profit.

In September 2020, after the elections, the new government of Abkhazia took the first steps towards legalizing cryptocurrency mining, although the import of new equipment was banned. The government has quadrupled electricity tariffs for those who declare themselves miners. Miners began to hide their identities.

After a change in the political situation, a crisis occurred in the field of cryptocurrency mining. Cryptocurrency offered a chance to gain freedom and new experience in the old coordinate system. Mining seemed to be a panacea for many problems. This project was filmed at the height of the mining boom in Abkhazia. This is the first film about this phenomenon in the Caucasus.

Abkhazia

The topic of cryptocurrency mining has become part of everyday life, including in Abkhazia. It fills people's lives with meaning. Children and old people, cows and dogs, women and men become the heroes of the story, in the center of which are the miners themselves - the culmination of all the action and the source of the conflict that pierces society. This local plot has a social background: an active and mobile stratum of society or one with access to resources for the sake of its own benefit, it puts the majority of the population in an even more unbearable position. In reality, social uncertainty and anarchy become the background of a unique dual picture of the existence of Abkhazia: nature and mining machines, a small people and the global crypto industry. Power grid overload caused by massive cryptocurrency mining is leading to rolling blackouts. But are miners really that greedy and selfish? Perhaps they know how to make sure that the light is returned to people?