Shots in Altai krai - by Wojciech Kasperski
director: Wojciech Kasperski
cinematographer: Szymon Lenkowski
Privet!
Wojciech Kasperski and Szymon Lenkowski
After long preparations to the trip I knew the map of Altai krai almost by heart. But now, sitting already in Barnaul, I found so many new places and the unknown roads on the map of my guide.
Hitchhiking in Syberia
We went by our Lada jeep to the South. The Ust-Kan region appeared to be friendly to us. We found some people who told us about rackets. We met the head of the Ministry of Extraordinary Situations for the part of Altai krai. We talked to him about the rackets problem and he showed us his maps. He called the maps “secret”, but the same stuff had showed us our guide. Then we went to the only village that lies in the ZONE 310.
Zone 310
We went to the Altai wedding there. The racket collectioners took us to the mountains to look for some pieces of rackets with them. We rode horses on the height of 2400 m. We found two pieces of rackets, one as big as a man.
Heroes of the film
Another region, where we planned our shots, appeared to be dangerous for both: our film and our lives. The Altai people, who live there, are called "Apaches". The only interviews we took sound like that: what do want here? where from? from Poland? film? what for? the TV is laying! we won’t give our land away! I was born here and here I’ll die! Most of the people are drunk all the time and some were aggressive. The villages we visited were placed in the most inaccessible palces. It took us six hours to ride 100 km. We fought huge differences of height (like 1500 m) on the distance of 3 km.
Cinematographer Szymon Lenkowski at work
In the middle of taiga, surrounded by mountains and by untrusting Altai people, we often felt like the prisoners of these mountain places.
We spent one month in Siberia: we did more than 2000 km, were stopped by police several times and had the adventures that are going to stay in our memories for a very, very long time. I hope the material we had done for our film will also stay in the memory of its public.