Authors

Discussion

The films Maappa (1986) (a diploma work by filmmaker Aleksei Romanov) and Saysari Kyolge (2016) illustrate the differences between innate and the learned (appropriated and artificial) traumas of colonization. The threat of physical harm, loss of life (or health) and privacy of home, loneliness, and infertility are natural fears. On the other hand, the sense (or suspicions) that you are inadequate, ugly, deformed, a vindictive alcoholic, or an unkempt wildling—and therefore, inhuman—and that your homeland is uninhabitable are imposed fears, resulting from learned or taught behavior. This paper highlights that Yakutia-based horror cinema reveals the fears of contemporary indigenous populations in Yakutia: How true are the stories that were told about us and the associated stereotypes created by imperialists? Are the populations and the land deserving of such abusive and exploitative treatment?

This study examines stock female characters in Yakutian horror and suspense stories with the intent to reveal the anatomy of Yakutia-made horror, in and Kostas Marsan’s На Озере Сайсары (2016), and in Aleksei Romanov’s film Мaаppа (1986), focusing on the empty apocalyptic landscapes that these characters haunt and inhabit. Without the storyline and without knowing the language, the both of the films may appear to fall within the apocalypse genre. Mappa and Luibov possess ephemeral quality and a hidden danger in them that places them in the realm of the