KHOLD

Epic, captivating journey through the Arctic in the Soviet Russia – from the revolution to the purges, Gulag and beyond.

A native of Upper Silesia and a veteran of World War I, Konrad Widuch is wholeheartedly committed to the revolution. After the war, together with the communist Karl Radek, he goes to Soviet Russia and fights in the 1920s for the proletarian order.
Years later, Widuch wants to leave the turmoil behind, starts a family and soon lives in seclusion in the barren landscape of the Russian-Norwegian border region.
But Stalin's bloodhounds do not grant him peace. In 1937, the year of terror and massive purges, Comrade Widuch is arrested as an 'old Bolshevik', convicted and sent to the Gulag in the far east, just outside Kamchatka. Widuch dares an incredible escape, as reckless as it is brutal. He succeeds – but now he stands alone in the vastness of the taiga, which is breathtakingly beautiful and no less hostile to life.
Widuch eventually ends up in a mysterious isolated settlement called Khold by its inhabitants. There they live according to the rhythm of the harsh polar nature, raise reindeer, hunt seals and bears, speak their own language and have never heard of Stalin.
Kälte is a story of the disillusionment of ideas, of an individual caught in the maelstrom of the times and the moment of peace outside civilization. However, only for a brief moment …