CZECH REPUBLIC: Documentary by young Polish director takes viewers to the edge of Russia

Record ID: 741353

  • Title: CZECH REPUBLIC: Documentary by young Polish director takes viewers to the edge of Russia
  • Date: 5th July 2011
  • Summary: KARLOVY VARY, CZECH REPUBLIC (JULY 3, 2011) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Polish) DIRECTOR MICHAL MARCZAK SAYING: "The biggest problem was psychology - we had arguments. There were also language problems - we didn't understand the Russians. We did things which we thought made them nervous, then we found out they didn't feel that way. We had arguments. There were hard moments. We were staying just in one room and we had to behave ourselves there somehow. Not everything was going smoothly but we knew we were going to be there for two and a half months and that we had to finish the film during this time. Thanks to the fact that we worked a lot we survived there. Without the work we would have gone crazy, but the work kept us together." POSTER WITH LIST OF DOCUMENTARY FILMS COMPETING AT KARLOVY VARY FESTIVAL
  • Embargoed: 20th July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Czech Republic, Czech Republic, Russian Federation
  • City:
  • Country: Czech Republic Russian Federation
  • Reuters ID: LVA5UUTR7E6QV9NLQD629DSOQL5L
  • Story Text: Young Polish documentary-maker Michal Marczak presented his first documentary "At the Edge of Russia" at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The 72-minute-long film takes viewers to the very edge of northern Russia. There, not far from the icy Arctic Ocean one of the last border stations still operates under the supervision of five veteran soldiers and a rookie.
    "The idea of the film came from a Kapuczinski book about Russia I have read when I was 18. There was no metal in the sixties in Russia, because most of it was used for barbed wire to protect the border. The film was a Polish-Russian project which should show how the border stations from fifties look like today. I knew about those stations and I got some video from a soldier serving there. The people serving there look very intelligent, interesting faces who didn't look like drinkers. The whole situation was so absurd that I was thinking this is a chance to make an interesting film about the basis from the fifties," said 29-year-old Polish director in Reuters interview.
    One of the film's main character Alexei, a 19-year-old recruit, has being sent to perform his military service at Russia's northern frontier. It is one of few such remaining outposts on the Arctic Ocean. In this snow covered no-man's land, hundreds of miles from the nearest human settlement. Alexei has to guard this snow-covered no man's land with five other soldiers. In the course of the film as they continue their absurd duty and struggle to survive in the snowy wasteland.
    It took Michael Marczak three years to complete the film, half of this time he has been trying to get permission to film at a border guards outpost. In his letter to Russia's military authorities he said he wants to make a film about the ornithology. Year and a half later the permission was granted.
    Marczak and the crew tested themselves and equipment in the freezing temperatures in the Russian mountains before they headed to the border guards outpost, where they had to work in conditions of minus 40 Celsius.
    But cold was not the main problem for filmmakers.
    "The biggest problem was psychology - we had arguments. There were also language problems - we didn't understand the Russians. We did things which we thought made them nervous, then we found out they didn't feel that way. We had arguments. There were hard moments. We were staying just in one room and we had to behave ourselves there somehow. Not everything was going smoothly but we knew we were going to be there for two and a half months and that we had to finish the film during this time. Thanks to the fact that we worked a lot we survived there. Without the work we would have gone crazy, but the work kept us together," said Marczak after the screening.
    Michal Marczak studied film production and multimedia at California Institute of the Arts, philosophy at Warsaw University and photography at the Academy of Fine Arts at Poznan. But the most important for his debut was his studies at the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Direction in Warsaw. He started with making video clips.
    In 2009 he made short 16-minute documentary "A Woman Sought" (Kobieta poszukiwana). It was followed by "At the Edge of Russia" in 2010. The film has already won the main prize at the Planete Doc Review Festival in Warsaw.
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