Film-maker brings story of nomadic school to Paris

Alexandra Lavrillier was one of three Laureates whose work was presented to the French public in 2008. The nomadic school she founded is changing the lives of its students and raising interest in a rich and endangered pastoral culture. The school is now the subject of a prize-winning documentary by French film-maker Michel Debats.

The Paris opening of L'École Nomade (School on the Move), a 52-minute documentary by French film-maker Michel Debats, was attended by journalists, ethnologists and schoolchildren. Fascinated by the work of 2006 Rolex Laureate Alexandra Lavrillier, a Parisian ethnologist who works alongside the nomadic Evenk people to help them preserve their way of life, Debats spent a month filming in the harsh conditions of the Siberian taiga.

The nomad school established by Lavrillier has enabled 21 young Evenks to follow the official Russian syllabus without leaving their parents, who are hunters and reindeer herders in the taiga. The Evenk way of life has been under threat for decades from the modern world, particularly because Evenk children are required by law to follow the national school curriculum which – until Lavrillier began her project – meant that they had to spend months at a time in boarding school, far from their families.

In June 2008, the first series of pupils from the nomad school scored top marks at their third examination by the Russian education authorities. Throughout the school year, seven teachers travelled on sledges to teach the children as their nomadic families moved across a region covering over 1,500km2.

Test image alt desc©Rolex Awards/Antoine Rozès

The results exceeded all expectations. “The children who learned to read and count in the taiga scored better than those from the village school where they sat their exam,” says Lavrillier, who is using the funding from her Rolex Award to run the travelling school for five years.

Michel Debats’ film follows nine-year-old Andreij, Anastacija, 4, and their classmates during lessons with teacher, Klara Abramova, A tent that serves as a classroom in the taiga where they learn from parents and elders the skills and rules they need to survive: how to care for reindeer, hunt sable and elk, recognize edible berries and leave wood behind for the camp’s next occupants.

Test image alt desc©Rolex Awards/Antoine Rozès

The students are also initiated into rituals regulating nomadic life, such as hanging ribbons in trees to ensure the goodwill of Bugha, the spirit of nature, or building tombs for the remains of the sacred bears they hunt and skin.

“Our children learn to listen to nature: the trees, the wind, the rivers, the animals, the invisible,” one mother explains. “None of this knowledge is taught in boarding schools.”

The film, in which the Evenks speak their own language, has struck a chord in Russia, where about 30 Siberian minorities are seeking to balance tradition and modern life.

In September 2008, L’École Nomade won the prize for best documentary at the 12th Golden Drum Festival in Khanty-Mansiysk, in Western Siberia. It has also won awards in the United States, where it received the Merit Award for Educational Value at the Montana Film Festival and the Chris Award at the Columbus International Film and Video Festival.

Alexandra Lavrillier is delighted that the film has won such wide recognition as the Evenks themselves are very proud of it: “They put heart and soul into this film – the first they consider to be truly theirs.”

Francesco Raeli and Edmund Doogue


In 2008, the French capital also played host to Runa Khan Marre and Kikuo Morimoto as they presented their work to the public.

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