HISTORY

 

Life-long friends Todd Reynolds and Ronnie Sortor made super-8 short films in high school and college during the 1980's, developing a passion for filmmaking that stemmed from their love of cinema.  Eventually they met fellow Springfield, Missourian Dan Skinner who provided much of the ambitious energy and enthusiasm (as well as his charismatic acting presence onscreen) to develop the project that ultimately became the feature film, SINISTRE in 1994.   Under the production company name of BORDERLINE ENTERTAINMENT, they assembled a talented cast and crew that went on to make three more movies as well as producing & acting roles in Mike Strain Jr.'s VILE 21 (1996).  All the BORDERLINE ENTERTAINMENT features were released world-wide on VHS as well as DVD when that format took over the home video market.  Distributed by SRS Cinema LLC in Syracuse, NY, Sortor and Reynolds became well-known in the micro-budget shot-on-video horror movie circuit and many new filmmaker peers welcomed them into their ranks.   Sortor had several behind-the-scenes articles published to accompany his movies' releases in genre print magazines such as Fangoria and Alternative Cinema.
What had seemed like a bright future at the time eventually atrophied and faded away. Sortor says,  "The unfortunate reality was that all the Borderline features were shot on analog Super VHS.  The digital video revolution happened during our production years and the audio/video quality of our movies were quickly considered sub-standard.  Sales were lackluster and we never really turned a profit.  The motivation to upgrade and continue making movies after four back-to-back productions never coalesced."  In 2005, Sortor wrote, produced, directed and edited the short zombie film, "Remains" which was included as a supplement in the DVD release of SINISTRE that year, but the rekindling of the filmmaking dream still couldn't quite be stoked enough to continue into another feature.  For a more in-depth memoir of our history, see Ronnie's early Blog posts here.
Fast-forward to Summer, 2014.  Philadelphia filmmaker, Phil Stevens, a long-time fan of the Borderline movies who'd always stayed in touch with Sortor for advice and feedback on his work, contacted Ronnie with a request to edit his latest production, the "return to art-house horror film" FLOWERS.  Having eagerly followed the movie's progress, Sortor was flattered and exhilarated by the prospect.  Although the production was long and arduous, resulting in a severe case of burn-out for the director, the film was 98% completed and ready for post-production.  Sortor agreed and invested in the film, acquiring new state-of-the-art editing, sound and camera gear to make the completion of FLOWERS a reality.  Sortor says, "There were a few odds and ends that needed to be shot, including a new concept to augment the opening scenes, so I took on the 2nd Unit Director role.  My favorite part of the filmmaking process has always been and always shall be editing.  This is where my cinematic itch gets scratched.  This is where you really 'make' a movie and see it manifest as you assemble it like a magician!  I'd be happy to do this every day for the rest of my life!"  And that's where BORDERLINE CINEMA was reborn.
At the moment, FLOWERS is complete but was only briefly available as a limited DVD (authored by Sortor).  Unearthed Films released the official DVD in two versions: as a single disc and a deluxe 3-disc DVD in October, 2015.