Once There Was a Sea…

Director: Joanna Kożuch

Producers: Peter Badač, Joanna Wendorff-Ostergaard, Roman Gensky, Sona Horvathova, Ireneusz Niewolski

Poland, Slovakia 2021
16’30”

Last human stories from the glittering bottom of dying Aral Sea. Svetlana stares into the salt desert with her only eye. Gulshat runs an empty hotel. Captain records traces of the vanishing sea, and Sergei drives tourists across its bare, glittering seabed. The last people of Mo´ynoq who remember the original shore of drying Aral Sea… Their days are intertwined with memories of the glorious past of the fishing power and dreams of the return of the great water. The present is a cemetery of ships that will never set sail from the port again.