"When I arrived in Chechnya, the first taxi driver I met asked me - are you a journalist? on which problems are you gonna write about? Needless to say he was surprised that I was there to research on rituals - and especially those Sufi ceremonies someone told me about a few weeks before, when I entered the northern (and poorly known) part of the Caucasus. Far from the delicate and almost too picture perfect whirlind dervishes from Turkey, most of the Sufi rituals I filmed around the world are wild, intense, loud and stunning. And probably more than anywhere else this is the case in Chechnya, where it is said that during the two wars with Russia, the Sufi masters were turning even faster when the bombs were exploding nearby. Ah one last little detail - all the 'strange' sounds produced are by breathing only."
- Vincent Moon
28 сен 2024
