Ruptly invites content creators to probe Soviet-era mystery with multi-platform project
September 12, 2019
Ruptly, the award-winning video news agency, has unveiled a multi-platform project centring on the infamous Dyatlov Pass incident, in which nine hikers mysteriously died. Creating an immersive digital world, Ruptly combines rarely-seen archival materials, including the group’s original expedition diary entries, with present-day footage and interviews, providing an exclusive window on unexplained events as they unfolded.
60 years ago, nine students led by Igor Dyatlov set out on a 300km trek in the Ural Mountains – never to be seen alive again. To this day, the cause of their deaths is unsolved, with only trace evidence remaining: the diary they kept, the photos they took during their expedition, and the unexplained and gruesome circumstances in which their bodies were found. Piecing together the story, users of the Ruptly platform can investigate the mystery via exclusive content and recreate their own vision of what took place on that fateful trip.
Dinara Toktosunova, Head of Ruptly, commented: “This project breaks new ground for documentaries thanks to immersive storytelling, liberating users to dive deep into the story. We hope that such an interactive approach, framed in modern terms, will inspire everyone from big-name broadcasters to independent content creators to engage with their own creative vision of past events.”
Dyatlov’s Group Journal: The Last Page, sees Ruptly showcase exclusive, independently-produced content spread across Instagram, an extended documentary-style feature and a dedicated webspace with astonishing video footage available to users in a variety of formats.
For those wanting to create their own unique documentary content to share with audiences, Ruptly is offering raw access to all original footage, images and archive materials collated, providing filmmakers, historians, and educators alike with the tools for their own storytelling.
For those seeking captivating ready-to-share content, the project is also accessible as a ‘close-up’ extended feature, produced by Ruptly, on the mystery of Dyatlov’s group.
“We visualised Instagram as a contemporary reimagining of the group’s diary, including features on each of the hikers, so you get to know all the participants. While on the website you follow key investigative moments,” said Vadim Maximov, Ruptly’s Creative Director.
The project’s painstakingly captured and collated materials return to this open chapter in modern history; inviting today’s storytellers to make one final entry into the unfinished Dyatlov’s Group Journal.