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 (...