Water buffaloes in the Carpathians and a hero who wants to settle down – but on his own terms. Ukrainian producer Aliona Kachkan discusses her Docs For Sale selection As Far As Possible, about to complete post-production and ripe for a festival debut in 2021.
For all intents and purposes, German cowhand (or buffalo-hand) Michel is an idealist. He loves the Carpathians and he loves animals. In fact, all he wants in life is “two horses, one cow, five buffaloes, a little hut with an orchard of apple and walnut trees, children and a smart woman.” And all of this as far away from civilization as possible.
But Michel isn’t quite the ingénu that the early scenes of Ganna Iaroshevych’s film would have us believe. Being the son of a successful German businessman, he has a shrewd side as well, as well as a firm belief that his bucolic dream is fully realisable.
What’s more, he has boy-band good looks and an adoring girlfriend (with two kids) back home in Germany who is prepared to change her life (and that of her children) for him.
And so we follow him on his fairy-tale journey through the film. We see the ups and downs, the gains and the losses, the trials and the tribulations, before the whole thing culminates in a pastoral coda sequence which could only have been shot in the lockdown summer of 2020, and which lets us know the final outcome of Michel’s story.
“Ganna [Iaroshevych] approached me with the story of this strange German man breeding buffaloes,” says Aliona Kachkan of Tabor Production. “It is her debut feature. She found Michel on a blog on the internet, and after contacting him she ended up in the Carpathian mountains and followed him for more than 4 years.”
The film also marks Kachkan’s debut as a producer (she previously worked in journalism and public relations). “It was a perfect match,” she says. “A really interesting film, one that I would love to watch and I would want to sell, and also an opportunity for me to develop as a producer.”
The project itself was developed at numerous workshops and labs including B2B DOC workshops (2017-20), LisbonDocs, DocuDays UA and IDFAcademy, all the time being improved and sharpened for market. During 2020, the project has been selected for B2B Doc: Producers Meet Producers, Ji.hlava’s East Silver Market and now Docs for Sale.
The visuals within the doc are at times sumptuous, as the drone camera swoops over the Carpathian tundra above the water buffalo, or as the process of transhumance (movement of livestock on foot) is undertaken. What’s more, the animals themselves make for great subjects as they are so docile and curious, and as loyal as dogs, the film tells us.
Of course, banal life gets in the way for Michel, and the flipside of these exterior scenes are the periods when we see him back home in Germany, organising business cards, checking stock in the warehouse, driving to work, losing body mass due to lack of vital exercise and sharing living space with his girlfriend Vera. All the time dreaming of the mountains to the East.
“Ganna had the intention to show a kind of fairy-tale at the beginning, but also to show the reality and the internal struggles of the person [Michel], which she understood so well,” says producer Kachkan, adding how, “it’s not that you are good or bad when you are forced to choose.”
“That’s why the story is universal,” she continues. “Of course this is a selling point for us, to have this Carpathian vibe with the buffaloes, these amazing animals that we adore watching, who have emotions, but she also found the pitfalls and the obstacles in the story that she presents [without] demonizing.”
The film has, so far, been made on a budget of approximately €90,000, which was raised mainly through private means, crowd-funding and support from the Ukrainian Institute. Kachkan estimates another two weeks for post-production polish and rights clearance, at which point the ‘play’ button can be pressed on the final version.
At Docs for Sale she is looking for sales representation and distribution deals, but her sights are set on early 2021 and a high profile launch. “Finding a festival for the world-premiere of this film is task number one,” she firmly underlines.
