the downfall of the narts

Dad always said that as long as we know our language, as long as we pass it on to our children, Ossetia will continue to exist. It always seemed strange to me –after my grandmother’s death, we hardly spoke Ossetian at home. Now I often wonder how much longer we can live on this earth as nation? While we are forgetting our rituals, while the language is moving from cities to villages and its speakers are getting older, while brides at weddings are replacing ethnic dresses with «european» ones, while slowly but surely globalization is blurring the boundaries between people. How long will we last on this earth, in human history?

The old needs to be let go, processed in a new way, or thrown away if it no longer brings any benefit. There is so much I would throw or processed beyond recognition about this people; there is so much that disgusts me about the Ossetian mentality. But still, deep down I’m afraid to destroy everything, to trample the fragility of this place.

Do I love Ossetia? Do I understand it? I don't know. But I know for sure that I am a representative of one of the last generations of Ossetians who knows their native language. This is a letter to the Motherland, which is slowly dying before my eyes.

The leitmotif of the film – “The Nart Saga” – are tales of the legendary heroes of antiquity, a set of moral rules of the ancient Ossetians. These are the first fairytales that a grandmother tells a child while rocking him in his cradle. It reveals many similarities to modern Ossetian society: they are manifested in everyday rituals, interpersonal relationships and way of living in general.The visual basis of my film is the archival chronicle of the inhabitants of Ossetia.