Film Fest Without Boundaries

An international film festival of green and social cinematography called The Northern Character: Green Screen takes place in the ending of September. This is the first edition of this event which happened in two neighboring cities—Russian Nickel and Norwegian Kirkenes.

This event has become one of the central ones in the history of biannual film festivals in Murmansk, Russia. The aim of this large event, supported by Nornickel Company, is finding new forms of human interactions with the outer world as well as development of an eco-friendly culture.

Since 2008, Murmansk region has hosted Northern Character International Film & TV Festival. During these ten years, Northern Character has become a visiting card of Murmansk region, a birth place for new names in documentary and feature cinematography, a meeting place for film professionals—masters and beginners—as well as for admirers of high-quality films. The festival program includes competition of films in seven various categories, master-classes, screening of opening and closing films, discussions and debates, creative meetings between filmmakers and audience—and cultural events.

Nature is not a resource of consumption.

"The cultural level of a person determines the person’s attitude towards nature. The higher the culture is, the more careful attitude the person has to the world. Nature is not a resource of consumption, but a source of inspiration," say the organizers of the festival.

The organizers of the festival are required to create an atmosphere of eco-friendly celebration which would unite the Russians and Norwegians in common intentions to save the northern nature. Choosing Pasvic nature reserve as one of the festival’s locations is not coincidental, and therefore one of the most controversial Norwegian movies called SEALERS: ONE LAST HUNT will be shown there. The film is about the last legal voyage of seal hunters. Later on, sea hunting was prohibited by the Norwegian government in 2015 by law.

The Guardian:

“There’s not a lot of poetry in killing seals – not in the rifle shot, nor in the swing of the infamous sealer’s club, the hakapik, not in the blood on the ice. But there’s poetry in the ocean. In Sealers: One Last Hunt, a Norwegian documentary film about the end of a way of life that is anathema to most of us in Europe, a group of hunters leap between the floes as the pack ice rises and falls on vast Atlantic swells, a scene that stays with the viewer like a song.”

Svetlana Soldatova, the President of Northern Character Festival:

“This time we have managed to collect the newest and most interesting films on a certain subject—about ecology and social issues. These movies are about people. We believe culture, people and nature are links of one chain. We think that we have succeeded in picking the movies corresponding to our beliefs.”

A Special Guest

The audience will see the movies from France, Finland, Norway and Russia. A special guest of the festival will be Alexander Sokurov, a Russian filmmaker, the winner of The Golden Lion award and a nominee of the Cannes film festival.

Martha Serobyan, a coordinator of the Northern Character: Green Screen

“We will show the movies about life, love and north. You are all welcome to join us!”

Festival Program

The festival is held on September 27-29, 2018. The opening of GREEN SCREEN will be held in Kirkenes on September 27, in the evening Kirkenes will transfer the festival relay to Nikel, where four sites will be involved: the Voskhod recreation center, the Pasvik reserve visit center, the Central library, the Art Center "2-school."

September 28th will be the opening of the festival on the Russian side, an international round-table "Nature, Culture and Man", a demonstration of the best films from the collection of the "Northern Character" Film Festival, meetings with filmmakers. The screenings of the films and the performance of the famous music group on September 29th will complete the festival in Nikel.