A film festival in Murmansk shows why dialogue with Russia is so necessary — and so tough

ANALYSIS: If you want to talk to Russian colleagues about matters close to their core persuasions, come well prepared.

We drive from Kirkenes at the very top of Norway to the Russian border and across the tundra for four hours to Murmansk, the biggest city in the Arctic, with a population of about 300,000. The windshield wipers on our minibus battle snow most of the way. I have been asked to sit on the jury of Northern Character, a film and television festival in Murmansk about everything in the north. It is not one of the biggest film festivals in Russia, but well organized by people from the local television station TV21 in collaboration with colleagues from Norway, Sweden and Finland.