Aleksandr MELNIK Александр МЕЛЬНИК Aleksandr MELNIK   Russia, 2008, full length film  Colour, fiction

Terra Nova ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ Новая Земля    Terre neuve  Novoya Zemlya

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Plot synopsis

'Escape from New York' meets 'Battle Royal' - in the Gulag! There is no more to say than that this big budget Russian Sci-Fi action bonanza became an immediate hit. The year is 2013, the death penalty has been abolished and prisons everywhere are overcrowded. When Ivan Zhilin (Konstantin Lavronenko) is convicted of the murder of 22 people, he is given the choice of a life sentence or being deported to the remote Arctic island Terra Nova together with 200 other prisoners and very little supplies. The control of Terra Nova is quickly assumed by the enormous Monkey (Pavel Sborschikov) and his brainless friends, who systematically go about killing and eating their fellow captives after the supplies have started rotting. Ivan and his companion Nikolai (Andrei Feskov) manage to escape the madness and find a way off the island, which unfortunately means that they have to return to the lion's den. The film is Russian, raw and violent, and well choreographed by the feature film novice Alexander Melnik, who manages to add both existentialist elements and political jabs to this testosterone frenzy. (http://www.cphpix.dk/n/a2.lasso?tt=f&s=2009015&sf=-4-&ser=764&e=1&-session=N:42F9435209ea1166FELYV350D513)

 

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Commentaries and bibliography

Aleksandr Mel’nik : Terra Nova (Novaia zemlia, 2008), Kevin M. F. PLATT, kinokultura.com, 2009

 

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Selected in the following festivals :

- Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival : NIFF, Neuchâtel (Switzerland), 2011

- Copenhagen International Film Festival / CPH PIX, Copenhagen (Denmark), 2009

- Russian Film Festival, Riga (Latvia), 2008

- Annual award of the Guild of Historians of Cinema and Film Critics, Moscow (Russia), 2008

- International Human Rights Film Festival, Moscow (Russia), 2008

- Window to Europe Film Festival, Vyborg, Vyborg (Russia), 2008

- Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 2008

- Middle East International Film Festival : MEIFF, Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), 2008

- Russian Film Festival, London (United Kingdom), 2008

- Russian Film Week in New York, New York (USA), 2008

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