The Origins : Fragments of the Hunt, 2018

The Origins is a silent film about the origins of the human culture. The movie presents a compelling argument that human imagination and art was evolved due to ancient art of persistence hunting (running and tracking down animals). The film is loosely based on the doctoral thesis work “Fragments of the Hunt: Persistence Hunting, Tracking and Prehistoric Art” (Aalto University 2017) by researcher and media artist Mikko Ijäs. The thesis deals with the early connection between trance rituals, persistence hunting and visual arts among the early hunter-gatherer societies.
The principal cinematography was executed among the Ju/‘hoan hunter-gatherers at the Nyae Nyae Conservancy in the Kalahari desert in Namibia and among the Ráramuri of the Mexican Sierra Madre.
The movie has two parallel story lines. The first layer is the story of how symbolic and visual culture might have originated from persistence hunting. The second layer is the story of how the modern culture is rapidly invading the last bits of land in the Kalahari and in the remote canyons in Northern Mexico and destroying the last indigenous cultures.
During the filming process the hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari have once more faced mass transportations away from their ancestral lands and this time they might actually lose their lands and their culture to give space for western trophy hunters. The drug violence that finally reached the “barrancas” of the Sierra Madre will also jeopardize the fragile culture of the Rarámuri.
The movie tells about the origins of human culture and the struggles of the last indigenous people in the Kalahari and in the Mexican Sierra Madre with minimal explanatory notes telling the story. The music for the film was composed by Maija Kaunismaa and it was performed together in collaboration with Vox Aureayouth choir (conductor Sanna Salminen) from Jyväskylä, Finland, saxophonist Jukka Perko and singer and igil player Imre Peemot. 

Click here to stream the film on YouTube

The film is done in collaboration with:
Arts Promotion Centre Finland
Alfred Kordelin Foundation
AVEK / The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture City of Helsinki Cultural Office
Aalto University
People ́s Cultural Foundation
and The Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia