The Sakha language is alive: a Yakut cartoon was recognized at a festival in Canada.
The short film "Tymnyy Oguha" ("Bull of Cold") was nominated for the preservation of indigenous languages at the imagineNATIVE film festival in TorontoThe marketing director of the Yakut animation studio Tundra told a NeMoskva journalist about this. Anna Borisova.
"This is our cartoon's first victory, but what a victory! We're very pleased and believe we've accomplished our goal," Anna shared. “The important thing is that the Sakha language is alive, people speak it, and create things that will find a response everywhere, even on the other side of the world.”
Yesterday "Tundra" опубликовала "Byka Kholod" is available on his YouTube channel. Anyone can now watch it in Yakut with Russian and English subtitles.
"This victory is very important and precious to our team, as it fully reflects our values. Our mission from the very beginning was to create high-quality animated content in the Yakut language for Yakut children, so they could have their own heroes," — says Borisova.
According to the imagineNATIVE festival jury, “the key to the survival of indigenous languages lies in the normalization of their use in all spheres.”
“We’ve seen Disney films being translated into Indigenous languages recently, but we haven’t seen any studio animation that was originally created in an Indigenous language.»- explained members of the jury.
At the heart of "Byk Kholod" is the story of a restless boy named Ayaal, who dreams of making ice sculptures like those created by the grumpy old master Büökke. And he got his chance! He not only gained access to the secrets of this cherished ice art but also met Tymnyy Oühä himself.
Tundra Studios previously attempted to crowdfund 3 million rubles to produce a new series of cartoons. However, as Anna Borisova reported, it failed—only 192 were donated.
Read our big June issue material about the Yakut animation studio "Tundra".
