"The most important thing for all of us is not to give up": the director Vladislav Rytkov about the film Borderland

The director Vladislav Rytkov, the cinematographer Stanislav Ambarzumov, and the composers Ivan Yartchevsky and Daniil Tsovin spoke about the film Borderland, which is part of the Documentary Film Competition of the 48th Moscow International Film Festival.

The film tells the story of how the soldiers and commanders of the Anvar special forces unit advance through the front lines in Kursk region, together with their comrades pushing the enemy back toward the Russian border. The commanders of the unit, Beret and Balu, execute the assigned tasks with cold blood, even though this conflict has become personal for them... And there will be no doubt that the Russian soldier does not seek revenge or loot. He saves people, the country, and normal life itself.

Vladislav Rytkov: "We spent more than two months in Kursk and Belgorod regions. The topic of nature is very close to me; we had already explored it in our previous film, I’m Going Home, and here we continued that topic. When you’re on your own land, you get rooted to it, like trees, which means we are not going to abandon our homeland and are ready to die for it. The important thing for all of us is not to give up".

Stanislav Ambarzumov: "The challenge was not to get killed or injured, but to complete our mission. It was both a psychological and physical challenge, and for all of us, just like our characters, it was important to remain human".

Daniil Tsovin: "It was very difficult to process the emotions I felt while watching the video footage, to get immersed and then step back".

Ivan Yartchevsky: "When we started writing the soundtrack, we were thinking of the Requiem score. And once the footage was ready, we edited it to the finished score".