At the Edge of Russia

Colour, HD CAM
Poland, 2010, 72 min
Section: Documentary Films in Competition

Synopsis

Young Polish documentarist Michał Marczak’s directorial debut, awarded at the Hot Docs festival, takes us to the very edge of northern Russia. There, not far from the icy Arctic Ocean, in a place hundreds of kilometers from the nearest residence, one of the last border stations still operates under the supervision of five veteran soldiers. And Alexei, a 19-year-old recruit, is headed their way. Despite the obvious absurdity of guarding the border, where only a polar bear might accidentally wander across, the soldiers don’t shirk from fulfilling their daily duty. Jittery Alexei is thus not only initiated into his border guard responsibilities but also into the essential rituals necessary for surviving in the snowy wasteland. Beyond the portraits of the individual soldiers and their life together, this visually striking picture probes the "Russian soul,” a concept whose meaning is often difficult to grasp.

About the director

Michał Marczak (b. 1982, Warsaw) took courses in direction and multimedia studies at the California Institute of the Arts, studied philosophy at Warsaw University, photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, and documentary direction at the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing in Warsaw. He started out making video clips and commercials and only began filming documentaries in recent years. He enjoyed success with his short film A Woman Sought (Kobieta poszukiwana, 2009). His feature-length documentary At the Edge of Russia (2010) won the main prize at the Planete Doc Review festival in Warsaw.