At the archaeological site Spadzista B in Kraków, one of the most important locations for research on the Gravettian culture in Europe, mammoth bones and fragments of Ice Age human life have been unearthed for decades. Inspired by the ideas of David Graeber and David Wengrow, Mammoth Tusks and Bones by ewelina węgiel, follows their intuition that prehistoric communities may have gathered seasonally to erect monumental bone structures, creating ephemeral forms of being together whose full reconstruction always eludes our knowledge.
The film immerses itself in the layers of earth, time, and the film medium itself, where gestures of humans, animals, and ghostly companions intertwine as they move between different planes of reality. Fragments of old fairy tales and folk stories become intuitive guides for reading the incomplete traces of the past, while contemporary waste—plastic, metal, textiles—appears alongside ancient bones as a meaningful, material commentary on our world today.In this peculiar interspecies community, rubbish acquires the magical potential known from Eastern European folklore, and excavation becomes a practice of care, play, and attentiveness. The film poses an open question: how can we narrate prehistory and build relationships with beings living on entirely different temporal scales: animals, spirits, sediments, and the specters of ancient stories?
Credits
Director, Cinematographer, Editor: ewelina węgiel
Writer: Mateusz Górniak
Sound: Antoni Skrzyniarz
Music: Antoni Skrzyniarz, Julek Płoski
With: Monika Błaszczak, Bono, Fire, Mateusz Górski, Aleksandra Grzesiuk, Dominika Węgiel
Consultant: Andrzej Marzec
Distribution Support: Weronika Adamowska
Producer: ewelina węgiel
