Abode of Dawn – Films – Visions du Réel

Sonnenstadt

Kristina Shtubert
Germany | 2024 | 105 min
Swiss Premiere
Languages : Russian, German, English
Subtitles : English, French

In the middle of the Siberian Taiga, cut off from the outside world, a community of men and women has lived for three decades, led by the man they consider their guide: Vissarion, the self-proclaimed messiah. Abode of Dawn takes us into the day-to-day life of this miniature human society, oscillating between indoctrination and the desire to invent another way of being in the world.

For three decades, a community has lived in seclusion deep within a Siberian forest. This micro-society advocates a return to the land and to religious faith. Who are the men and women who make up this group? What wound, what moment of reckoning led them to join? Over the course of nine years, German filmmaker Kristina Shtubert followed this tribe gathered around its spiritual leader, Vissarion — an invisible yet omnipresent figure, believed to be the reincarnation of Christ on Earth.
The film unveils a gallery of individuals, captured in the rhythm of their daily lives or at pivotal moments of transformation: Christine, married to a man she doesn’t love; Anna, an early devotee who spends her days in prayer; and Diana, a tormented young woman preparing to leave the community and chart her own course. The camera never judges, but seeks instead to understand, offering viewers the freedom to draw their own conclusions. Through these encounters, Kristina Shtubert crafts a collective portrait of ordinary people quietly resisting the model of post-liberal society.
Katy Léna Ndiaye

Abode of Dawn, 2024
Elisa, 2016
Merry-Go-Round, 2011