The VERA Centre for Russian and Border Studies, in co-operation with the WCTB research project, theRussian Centre for Science and Culture in Helsinki, the North Karelian Regional Film Association, and the Finnish Association for Russian and East European Studies is organising a Filmborders II series in 2013-2014.
Filmborders II continues the Filmborders series originally initiated by the Border Poetics research group at the University of Tromsø in 2010-2012 and continued in Joensuu in the beginning of 2013. Filmborders IItakes a glance at the unfamiliar and diverse symbolic borders of Russian life and society. All films are in Russian with English subtitles. Each viewing includes a short introduction to the film and a chaired discussion after the film in English. All films are shown free of charge at the movie theatre Tapio, Kauppakatu 27.
Filmborders II program in Joensuu is:
(Download the program in PDF form)
6.11. Time Out / Я остаюсь (Tapio at 16:30)
Director: Karen Oganesyan (2007, 112 min)
A man finds himself in a desert land with people like him not belonging to this world, yet not accepted by the other, and faces the question whether to cross the border between life and death.
Introduction and chair: Mari Ristolainen
27.11. Closed Spaces / Закрытые пространства (Tapio at 16:30)
Director: Igor Vorskla (2008, 95 min)
The first Russian emo-movie is a story about the newest generation of Russians and their personal borders and crossovers.
Introduction and chair: Katri Issakainen
4.12. Vanished Empire / Исчезнувшая империя (Tapio at 16:30)
Director: Karen Shakhnazarov (2007, 105 min)
The film's story takes place in Moscow in the 1970s. While busy with personal lives and loves, young people miss foreseeing that the borders of the country in which they were born and live will soon disappear from the map.
Introduction and chair: Minna Piipponen
15.1. Stalker / Сталкер (Tapio at 15.30)
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky (1979, 163 min)
Andrei Tarkovsky's sci-fi classic with abundant and ambiguous borders of the human psyche. It depicts an expedition led by the Stalker to bring his two clients to a site known as the Zone, which has the supposed potential to fulfil a person's innermost desires.
Introduction and chair: Tuulikki Kurki
29.1. White Sun of the Desert / Белое солнце пустыни (Tapio at 16:30)
Director: Vladimir Motyl (1969, 85 min)
This is a cult film in Russia, an ‘Eastern' taking place during the Russian civil war. It is both a gun-slinging frontier epic and a penetrating exploration of Russian culture and its borders.
Introduction and chair: Joni Virkkunen
