Documentary maker and ethnozoologist Hana Novakova says she first fell in love with moose when a remarkable event occurred in the Czech Republic.
“It all started in 2003, when I first heard that the moose population had made an incredible return to nature in their native Czech Republic after being extinct for 500 years,” she told Variety.
Five years later, while studying at Prague’s prestigious FAMU film school, her interest hasn’t waned one bit. A winding but unrelenting journey led her to the world premiere of “Amoosed” in the Czech Joy section of this week’s Ji.hlava doc fest.
A decision was definitely needed. Funders weren’t very receptive to her proposal, Novakova said, and the looming coronavirus lockdown meant she couldn’t shoot abroad.
“And once again, the ensuing diplomatic crisis between the Czech Republic and Russia in 2021, and the war Russia began a year later, made further filming in Russia impossible.”
Moose sightings in the Czech Republic remain extremely rare, so Novakova tracked down a Russian nature reserve in the Kostroma region that houses the majestic ungulates and once served as an anti-rocket defense facility.
“The first time I saw a wild elk was at a domestication facility in Russia where they were allowed to roam freely.”
The Russian team also succeeded in developing a method to extract milk from moose by exposing them to humans at birth, rather than having them nursed by their mothers.
She visited the area in 2016 and recorded some material that was later used on “Amoosed,” but she says the expedition was intended more as a scouting trip.
But the war made her plans to return home a few years later impossible.
“So we had to use much more reconnaissance material than we intended.”
After spending at least a decade on the film, including a trip to Nova Scotia where Mi’kmaq First Nations helped guide Novakowa to the moose homeland, the director steadily accumulated more material that proved enough to overcome the setbacks.
“I can no longer count the hours I spent,” Novakova says. “As pathetic as it may sound, I’m just trying to see making this film as part of my personal evolution as a human being.”
Novakova’s background as a scientist helped her find the structure for her quest story, she says.
“First, I’d like to introduce you to my childhood hero, a classical zoologist. Other scientists, like a Russian laser physicist, were also on the scene, and it became clear that we needed a bigger and different mojo than just a zoology diploma to be able to fully understand the mysteries of moose.”
Novakova says it was important to maintain perspective and focus on the bigger questions.
“I realized that I really needed to let go and be patient. Go where the animal was going to get me. That was in Nova Scotia, Canada. Meeting Sheryl, the Mi’kmaq chief, changed my life.”
Novakova underwent a cleansing ritual with herbal smoke before being welcomed into the wilderness for filming. She is told by Cheryl that a “special animal omen” has been sighted for her project. The moose community seemed to be OK with “Amoosed.”
Indeed, the moose is also a complex and mysterious central character. It seems that many questions about life in the wild are still not fully answered. But much has been learned over the years, including at least two interesting facts, Novakova says.
First, one moose may migrate while another in the same area may not, and that may be due to the animal’s personality, Novakova says.
Second, because they eat a wide variety of plants, their diets are so varied that it has proven “nearly impossible” to keep them healthy in captivity, even when fed a nutritious diet.
“The only mystery to me is why we still keep doing it. Would we do the same thing to humans if we knew all the facts? Of course not.”
“The message I want to send is purely positive,” Novakova says. “I think animals can be our greatest teachers. If we are willing to follow them and listen to them, they can even guide us from the danger of becoming disconnected from Mother Earth and ourselves.”
“whimsical”
Courtesy of Radan Prinke
