Koka is a pretty grown-up kid who lives with his father and two dogs in a coastal vil­lage on the Bering Sea. Under his father’s edgy instruc­tions, he helps with every­thing from fish­ing to pick­ing berries and mush­rooms. Every now and then a whale is carved up on the beach and dis­trib­uted in the com­mu­ni­ty. Sharp knives are needed to cut the tough meat, but Koka mas­ters this too. Only when join­ing other boys does Koka seem more child­like, dis­play­ing a wild tem­pera­ment in fights and secret­ly smoking.

Behind the harsh every­day life in the Arctic land­scape, and beyond subtle obser­va­tions, the film reveals the inti­mate bond between father and son: while Koka dives enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly into a steam­ing pool, the father talks off-screen about the early death of his mother and a heart defect in the boy, who is about to under­go anoth­er operation.

Ali­ak­san­dr Tsym­bal­iuk was born in 1989 and raised in Pinsk, Belarus. He grad­u­at­ed from the Cin­e­matog­ra­phy Depart­ment of the Film School in Łódź. He has taken part in var­i­ous doc­u­men­tary and fea­ture film projects, also as a cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er. Films: SASHA (2018, 13 min), NIGHT IN THE TRAM (2020, 5 min), QUEENDOM (2023, Dir: Agnia Gal­dano­va – cinematographer).