Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2013)
Genres: Documentary
Happy People: A Year in the Taiga is a 2010 documentary film directed by Dmitry Vasyukov, with English narration written and voiced by Werner Herzog. The film depicts the life of the people in the isolated village of Bakhta at the confluence of the Yenisei and the Bakhta River, in the eastern Siberian taiga. In particular, it focuses on the Russian trappers who hunt for fur animals, such as sable, and fish, depicting their cyclical, self-reliant life dealing with the subarctic climate and geographic isolation. It also briefly looks at the life of native Ket people in the village, and some notable people including an honored WWII veteran. The footage in the documentary was edited from a 2007 4-part television mini-series by Vasyukov.