52 Films by Women Vol 9. 29. Short Summer (Director: Nastia Korkia)

 

Pictured: Katya (Maiia Pleshkevich, right) is comforted by her grandmother in a scene from the film, 'Short Summer', co-written (with Mikhail Bushkov) and directed by Nastia Korkia. Still courtesy of Totem / Film Festival Gent. 

There is a kind of Eastern European film made with Western European financial support in which the camera is placed at a discreet distance from the subject. The intention is to present unmediated reality as ‘something that cannot be helped’. Things will always be bad. Agency is an illusion. These films are aimed at a foreign audience, since local audiences would derive little comfort in them. They perpetuate a stereotype, namely that Eastern European countries are characterised by phlegmatic fatalism. We identify certain behaviours in the films but are offered no pathology, no explanation for particular actions. These films offer a puzzle to be solved. The viewer is asked to fill in the gaps.

Short Summer, directed and co-written (with Mikhail Bushkov) by Nastia Korkia, describes a summer holiday for young Katya (Maiia Pleshkevich). She has come to stay with her grandparents in their summer home. Separately, both grandparents dote on the child. Together they are somewhat frosty as Grandpa is divorcing Grandma. ‘Where will you live?’ Katya asks Grandpa in one of the few dialogue exchanges. He doesn’t answer. In a later scene, he leaves Katya in the car and enters a small apartment building, the camera placed so we can see the parked car and the side of the building, the view of one apartment unobstructed by curtains. In a single take, Grandpa leaves Katya behind, walks up a path, enters the building and, out of view, is admitted into an apartment. He hugs a woman and disappears from sight.

It is quite unusual for an older couple’s divorce to be depicted from the point of view of a grandchild. There are no adult children – middle-aged folk – to weigh in. The film describes life during armed conflict. We are left to wonder about Katya’s father and mother, whether they are casualties of war.

Early on, we see a random act of violence. A stranger attacks a man who has started a fire next to a car parked in the countryside. There is a poster asking for information about a thirty-year-old male, thin, wearing a blue coat, an ex-soldier struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. The man is glimpsed in another scene, climbing out of the window of a general store one evening. A man with a torch notices something is wrong as the door to the store is open. The man in the blue coat appears in two further scenes, once shooing a dog away with his foot, causing his boot to come off. In his final appearance, he is heard then seen having entered through an open door. The camera follows him in medium close up through a 360-degree-pan. It is a suspenseful set piece; we understand he is capable of violence and unpredictable behaviour. As a victim of PTSD, he also represents war uncomfortably entering the domestic space.

Katya carries with her a piece of glass, using it, in a way, as modern young people utilise a mobile phone. It is a means by which she can mediate reality and amuse herself. Reflecting the sun, Katya follows the triangle of light that falls on surfaces. The film begins with an extended shot of a wet road filmed as if from the rear of a moving vehicle. Reflected on glistening asphalt is what looks like a paper plane or the outline of a fighter jet flying overhead. It is a compelling optical effect. We’re not sure quite what it means. We are then given a backseat view of the road and the driver being stopped at a checkpoint. Except that it is two boys playing a game, informing the driver that an anti-terrorist operation is taking place. They ask for documentation. The driver provides it. At least one of the children is known to them. ‘Isn’t that Petya? He’s grown.’ The boy asks if they are carrying weapons and requests that the front bonnet be opened. After the inspection is concluded, the driver sorts through some change and leaves it on the bonnet. The boys take the money enthusiastically and allow the car to pass. The scene unsettles the audience by showing security measures being normalised so extremely that they have become a form of entertainment. On the other hand, the boys demonstrate that they are good patriots who take their ‘duty’ (albeit in the form of playacting) seriously. There are repeated radio bulletins referencing Chechnyan separatism and terrorist acts; other reviews have described the film taking place during the ten-year 2^nd Chechen War, which ran from 7 August 1999 to 16 April 2009. 

In one memorable sequence, shown typically from a distance, Katya and three boys play football while a freight train rumbles above them carrying tanks and armoured all-surface vehicles. The train takes over a minute to pass. We barely pay attention to the children’s game as they ignore the single-file procession of military hardware on rails. In an earlier scene, fighter jets pass overhead. Korkia holds the shot. We see the sky after the jets have passed, leaving no trace.

The early part of the film shows the arrival of Katya and her grandparents. The view of the house and their vehicle is obscured by some bushes. Korkia wants us to understand that something is being withheld. The further away the camera is, the harder it is to determine the meaning behind certain actions. You cannot detect micro-aggressions from across a street. Inside the house, the grandparents busy themselves with the removal of shutters. We don’t know it yet, but this is the last summer that they will spend together in the house. In an early scene, Katya rests her head on Grandma’s stomach and asks to be told a story. In a later scene, when Katya is in the back of a car, switching the light on and off with her foot, Grandpa asks for her to pinch his neck. Katya performs a massage while he is driving.

There are typical summer scenes. Katya and two boys ride their bicycles and visit the village store. Again, the action is shown from a distance, the boys having their hair scuffed as they pass a trio of men sitting outside. Korkia moves the camera in closer to show what the men are doing. One of them is blowing bubbles. An older man is attempting to burst them.#

Pictured: Casting stones. Katya (Maiia Pleshkevich, right) watches a boy amuse himself in a scene from the film, 'Short Summer', co-written (with Mikhail Bushkov) and directed by Nastia Korkia. Still courtesy of Totem / Film Festival Gent.

The children cast stones into a large silo, accessible only by climbing a ladder then lying flat on one’s belly on a mesh cover. There isn’t much to do. In one scene, we see some cows being herded on the left side of the frame. Other cows linger on the right.

Going to the market is a treat. Katya cradles a freshly born chick, one of many in a box. Grandpa taps her on the shoulder. Time to go.

On the way back from town, Grandpa’s car breaks down. Korkia gives us a point of view shot of the road. We hear the engine struggle to maintain forward momentum. ‘Oh no,’ says Grandpa off screen. As he struggles to diagnose the problem, Katya announces that she has to pee. Grandfather asks her to urinate in a ditch. He will accompany her if she wishes. As they head out of sight of their car, another vehicle passes in the opposite direction. No way of asking for help.

The next day, from inside the house, we see a tractor pulling up. It is towing grandfather’s car. Grandfather steps into the house and searches the drawers. ‘Where is the money,’ he asks. Grandma enters the kitchen and locates an envelope full of notes. Grandpa counts some out and leaves to pay the tractor driver. Grandma keeps her emotions in check. In a later scene in which Grandpa complains about a lack of sugar, Grandma doesn’t hold back, pouring water on his head and telling him to wash himself.

We worry when Katya goes out on her own and explores the large sewer tunnel. Were something to happen to her, no one would know she was there. She wades through the tunnel, water covering her feet and ankles. She discovers a couple, shown a distance, having sex, the man taking the woman from behind. Is it consensual? Katya places her hand on a sheet through which tiny holes allow for small dots of light.

In the film’s finale, Katya and the boys are chasing each other round the house, filmed from a static camera position inside the kitchen; we see part of the lounge. The game develops into hide and seek. We note the paucity of hiding places. A count to twelve is made, but when completed, the stranger in a blue coat appears. As he wanders through the kitchen, we wonder if he’ll discover the grandparents’ envelope of cash. A pan is dropped on the floor. He helps himself to food. Then he discovers Katya and pulls her own from her hiding place and places her on the table. Adult and child face each other. Katya places her hand on the man’s forehead, apparently soothing him. In the next scene, Katya is playing in the garden. She buries some flowers in soil, placing a glass on top of them. Having pressed the soil firmly around the flowers and glass, she wipes off the topsoil so we can see the flowers encased in glass; a beautiful image, ensuring that a memory of life in the house is kept intact.

The house is to be demolished. The shutters are placed back up. Katya moves back to the city. She’s in an apartment full of books. The room is empty. A triangle of light moves across the wall. Time and place are never clearly identified.

Korkia shows how it is possible to live in parallel with a conflict, the ‘terrorist’ being an abstract descriptor. We are left with questions about what we don’t know, the unspoken, and the metaphorical sense of water being brought very slowly to the boil.

Reviewed at Screen Seven, Picturehouse Central, Shaftesbury Avenue, Central London, Sunday 12 October 2025, 14:50, London Film Festival Press and Industry screening.