With a breathtaking helicopter landing, we are abruptly hurled into the midst of an isolated community of Russian and Ukrainian miners in Barentsburg (Spitsbergen, Svalbard). In recent years, the coal industry in this region has seen a dramatic decline, but the state-owned mining company, Arktikugol Trust, is nonetheless determined to maintain its long-standing geostrategic position.

​

To ensure the survival of this former Soviet outpost, the miners continue their laborious tasks to be self-sufficient in their power supply. In a land of extremes—while trying to defy the natural laws of the Arctic—they routinely submit to "the machine's hunger for coal." Outpost gradually discloses a series of dark reflections regarding a faltering industrial model that seems stubbornly in denial about its final phase.

​

The film was shot in October 2015 and March 2016, each time over a period of two weeks, and was made possible thanks to the warm support of the residents of Barentsburg.

Outpost was nominated for the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2018.