Secrets of the series “Border. Taiga novel ": What's left behind the scenes

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

March 28 marks the 86th anniversary of the famous film director and screenwriter, People's Artist of Russia Alexander Mitte. Almost every of his work became a real event in the world of cinema: "They Call, Open the Door", "Burn, Burn, My Star", "The Crew", etc. And the 8-episode film "Border. Taiga Romance”became one of the first domestic serials that competed with foreign serials and gathered a huge number of viewers on TV screens. Behind the scenes of the film, there are many interesting moments that the director and actors talked about only years later.

In the 1990s. Brazilian serials were very popular with viewers, and director Alexander Mitta decided to shoot a serial film that could become an alternative to foreign “soap operas” - with several storylines and exciting twists and turns, but more dynamic and laconic. This is how one of the first TV series of domestic production was born - “Border. Taiga Romance , thanks to which the names of Renata Litvinova and Olga Budina became known to the general public.

The idea to shoot a serial film came to Alexander Mitta back in 1997, but due to lack of funding, the shooting had to be postponed for 3 years. Having written the script, the director offered it to one of the TV channels. He was advised to expand the storylines and increase the number of episodes, which seemed to him an interesting opportunity to try his hand at a new format: "".

"Border" became a kind of Mitta's return to "big cinema" - in the era of the cinema crisis in the 1990s. the director did not shoot new films for almost 10 years and was engaged in teaching work at the Hamburg film school. He told: "".

A relative of screenwriter Zoya Kudri was a military man, and he suggested the idea of filming on the territory of one of the disbanded military units. All the premises there were empty - all that remained was to build a few sets and bring the props. The actors lived there, and they could fully experience the real garrison atmosphere.

Director Alexander Mitta admitted years later: "".

All the actors were dressed in a common dressing room, and only one actress enjoyed the special privilege of consulting a personal costume designer. But the role itself obliged this - the heroine of the then unknown Renata Litvinova even went to the swamp in a stylish dress. It was thanks to this series that Litvinova became a real star and later admitted that she was very grateful to both the director and colleagues - after all, “a lot of personalities” worked on the film: “”.

The heroes of the series are not only people, but also … animals and birds: a hawk, ducks, hares, a snake, two wolf cubs. But the main "star" was the she-wolf, who was "played" by a husky dog named Blizzard. According to the script, she had to constantly grin and growl, but she turned out to be too good-natured and flatly refused to perform directorial tasks. In the scene of a fight with a ferocious beast, which was to be portrayed by Alexei Guskov, they filmed her "understudy" - a husky named Asya, with a more severe character. But she also turned out to be an unconvincing wolf. The dog was smeared with dressing room blood, made light anesthesia, but it practically did not work, and the "killed she-wolf" looked at the actor with frightened eyes and tried to lick his face.

Unfortunately, many of the actors who starred in this series are no longer alive: in 2013, Andrei Panin died, who played the role of Major Crow, Aleksey Zharkov, who played the smuggler, died in 2016, and Oleg Nepomniachtchi, who was remembered by the audience in the image of Glinsky's administrator, Semyon Curzon, died in the same year.

Few people know that the text of the soundtrack "You carry me, river", which has become no less popular than the film itself, was written by Alexander Mitta, and performed by composer Igor Matvienko. And later this song appeared in the repertoire of the Lyube group.

Years later, Alexander Mitta had an idea to shoot a sequel to the series, he even wrote a script for it, but he did not find support on any of the TV channels - and this idea remained unrealized.

After the main role in the series “Border. Taiga Romance incredible popularity fell on Olga Budina, but then the actress disappeared from the screens for a long time: Why Olga Budina left the profession, and what made her come back.