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NA GRANICY

THE HIGH FRONTIER

By Wojciech KASPERSKI

First film - Completed 2016

A father with two teenage sons goes away to a small mountain cabin for the male bonding adventure. When a lost tourist appears, the male-bonding outing turns into a struggle for survival.

- Year of production
- 2016
- Genres
- First film, Thriller
- Countries
- POLAND
- Languages
- POLISH
- Budget
- 1 - 3 M$
- Duration
- 90 mn
- Director(s)
- Wojciech KASPERSKI
- Writer(s)
- Wojciech KASPERSKI
- Cast
- Marcin DOROCIŃSKI, Andrzej CHYRA
- Producer(s)
- Marcin WIERZCHOSLAWSKI (METRO FILMS)
- Synopsis
- MATEUSZ (48) and his two teenage sons, JANEK (18) and TOMEK (14), go to the mountains for the winter holidays. Mateusz, a former border guard, wants to take the lads along on a male-bonding adventure to show them the simple life: how to draw water from a stream, to chop firewood, to hunt. They are welcomed by LECHU (60), the border guard’s commander, who lets them stay at a small border cabin – an unused and vacant watchtower. After a restless night a frozen tourist arrives at the cabin, coming in out of a raging snowstorm. He says he has left people behind him on the trail. Following his trail back to a ravine by the border, Mateusz comes across a migrant smugglers’ lorry and tracks of numerous people.
  
  Tomek stands by the radio transmitter to signal for help, while his brother Janek talks to the tourist who has by now woken up and introduces himself as KONRAD (35). Konrad asks about a snowmobile and goes out with Janek to check if one happens to be around. Meanwhile, Mateusz discovers a WOMAN (28) in the lorry that has crashed in the ravine; she is the sole survivor in a group of migrants who tried to sneak through the border. She says Konrad was the driver who caused the crash and left them all behind to die. They start back towards the watchtower cabin. Meanwhile at the cabin, Konrad’s strange behaviour starts to raise suspicions. Faced with the breakdown of communication with their father and the base, the lads want to go down to get Lechu’s help. Unexpectedly, Lechu arrives himself on a snowmobile and, to the boys’ surprise, he turns out to know Konrad. Both men are connected by some shady business, and Lechu appears to be not just the commander of border guards but of the gang of people smugglers as well. The boys get locked up in the attic and Lechu leaves the cabin following a falling out between him and Konrad.
  
  Mateusz and the woman push through the woods with great difficulty amidst a raging snowstorm. The woman, who introduces herself as ALISA, is a refugee looking for a better life in the distant west. Mateusz and Alisa find they have a lot in common – they both share a difficult, painful past. Meanwhile, the boys have become the hostages; as they try to escape from their predicament, Konrad pacifies and confines them. He decides to get rid of any witnesses and kill the boys. Mateusz and Alisa turn up at the cabin just as Konrad has gotten the boys cornered. During the final deathly struggle between Mateusz, Janek and Konrad, a fire gets started. The whole mountain cabin goes up in flames. The family of three, along with the saved woman, wait for help. As a rescue helicopter arrives, the sun rises, heralding a new beginning.