Novaya Zemlya (New Land / Terra Nova, 2008)

Russian DVD or DVD-R


Made in 2008 a near future (the film takes place in 2013) dystopian action thriller. Dark and depressing about an
icily cold near future world where a Corporation or some Organization has taken over the world. A future where
all the prisons on Earth are full and where prisoners are shipped in cages and dumped on some northern Russian
island in the arctic sea. They are no longer prisoner but "Colonists" of the Terra Nova, the New Land.

The 206 prisoners are left with food rations and material for 3 months and will occasionally be checked upon by
Satellite. The prisoners are the worst of the worst, a horde of violence proned murderers and psychopaths and
when the High Officials, protected by a mass of heavily armed soldiers, leave the colonists prisoners they unload
a big heap of Axes on the beach. Almost as if the authorities wanted something bad to happen to the prisoners.

Our main protagonist Ivan Gieorgievich Zhililin (Konstantin Lavronenko) knows something bad will happen as
soon as the officials leave, and he's right. The colonists rush towards the Axes and then start to kill each other off.
First the non-Chechen russians slaughter the Chechen russians (christians vs. muslims, they don't seem to like each
other very much here) and then other fractions between the prisoners are formed as strong vs. weak.

Lemmings immediately eat all the food rations and Ivan tries to walk away from the Colony. But steep coastal
mountains and glaciers soon stop him. He's joined by Nicolai (Andrey Feskov) and they try to survive by
hunting birds and fish. But the arctic winter is approaching with extreme temperatures and when returning to
the Camp they find out that the Colonists have resorted to cannibalism.

The DVD with film in anamorphic widescreen and russian audio 2.0 with english subtitles, region all, no extras.
Ingeborga Dapkunaite from i.a. Aleksey Balabanovs great "Morphine" can be seen briefly as an UN official

 

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