Braguino + discussion with director Clément Cogitore

In this work directed by the French artist, filmmaker and photographer Clément Cogitore, two feuding families, the Braguines and the Kilines, live in adjoining but otherwise isolated compounds deep in Siberia’s boreal forest, their settlement completely unreachable by road. The families are part of an ancient Russian Orthodox Church sect who sought isolation in order to live according to their beliefs, but the immense pristine forest is both a resource and a threat.

 

Against this backdrop, Braguino evocatively traces the tensions and possibilities of building a community in a remote and rapidly changing environment. Resonating with conversations across the In formation III programme, Cogitore’s film is concerned with subsistence and with documenting life outside of the pressures of capitalism, social inequality and forced migration. The desire to conserve life, manage our common affairs, assemble in public and build communities is at the centre of the discourse embraced by Cogitore’s filmmaking practice.