Gu Tao
China
2013 | 01:39:30

Gu Tao has followed for years the lives of several members of the (previously nomadic) Ewenki minority in Northeast China. The result is sometimes stunningly sad and at others incredibly funny. Raw, rough and intimate portrait of an alcoholic basher. In the forests and mountains of north-eastern China live the Evenks, a nomadic people that migrated 300 years ago from Siberia and is now one of the 56 officially recognised ethnic groups in China. They live themselves by hunting and breeding reindeer. In 2003, the Evenks were forced to move from the forests to a new settlement built by the government. Weijia is one of them. For much of his life he was a hunter. His land has now gone, his hunting rifles have been impounded and his way of life is dying out. Now he can no longer hunt, Weijia spends his days drinking and musing on his past. The intimate The Last Moose of Aoluguya is the final part of Gu Tao’s anthropological trilogy in which he follows an Evenki family. The first two parts were Aoluguya… Aoluguya… (2007) and Yuguo and His Mother (2011). Gu Tao lived with the Evenki for years and was responsible for directing, camera, production, sound and editing. He has received several awards.