Borderland

The borderland of the title has several meanings, which find a poetic reflection in this documentary. For example, the concrete border region between countries, but also the boundaries between friends and relatives who have been separated by the course of history. Like Viktor, who can no longer return to his mother in Latvia after four years in a Russian prison. Or the old Communist comrades, who wave at each other where Latvia, Russia and Belarus meet. The borderland as a no man’s land, a deserted plain, and the effect a building has on it. The borderland of an uncertain identity, with or without citizenship, philosophising about good and evil. The musings on the voice-over are illustrated by images of houses on forsaken expanses, in the streaming snow, and of an old military satellite dish, which is now searching for life in space.