VICTOR FRANKOWSKI
Photographer / Director

Borderlands

A collaborative project between Victor Frankowski and Simon Lane commissioned by Random Acts premiered on Channel 4 in November 2018.

Mother Nature leaves a chilling message for her inhabitants in this visual poem set high up in the northern hemisphere.

The film traverses through the European Arctic, on the Norwegian and Russian border towns of Kirkenes (Norway) and Nikel (Russia). They are separated by 25 km of vast, white sparseness and offer two very different perspectives on life in the artic, which due to global warming, share the same rapidly changing landscape.

In the ice cold seas and through the bleak soviet-era apartments, we explore the relationship between urbanity, industry, nature and the people that live there showing the vast difference in arctic settlements, their architecture, culture, and identity whilst portraying the normality of life in the Arctic frontier often eluded from the media.

The film is narrated by Adjoa Andoh with the monologue written by Laura Kirwan-Ashman.

CREDITS

Director Simon Lane
Producer Victor Frankowski
DOP Jake Gabbay
Composer Bankey Ojo
Score Mixer Ty S, Anderson
Audio record Arrival Studios
Film Processing Kodak London

Narrator Adjoa Andoh
Poet Laura Kirwan-Ashman
Colourist Dan Moran @ Creep Post

Commissioned by Random Acts for Channel 4.

Cast
Alexandr Sezemov
Vadim Neganov
Evgenia Bektasova