After premiering her documentary feature GES-2 at the Venice Film Festival in 2021, Nastia Korkia returns to the festival this year with her narrative feature debut Short Summer. The coming-of-age tale, set in Russia amid a raging war in the backdrop, will premiere at the Venice sidebar Giornate degli Autori this weekend, and we’re pleased to exclusively debut the first trailer and poster.
Here’s the synopsis: “Eight-year-old Katya spends the summer with her grandparents in the Russian countryside. Time stands still, adults remain silent, and a war in the background destroys lives. Meanwhile, kids are growing up and the clouds fly past.”
“For me, Short Summer is an attempt to show how war and fear quietly seeped into everyday life, shaping a child’s world not through loud events, but through small details, whispered conversations, the unsettling occurrence of terrorist attacks nearby, news about the war on TV,” said director Nastia Korkia. “It is important to me to preserve that fragile memory of childhood, its light and shadows. I don’t want to moralize; I want to reflect on denial, helplessness, and the quiet courage it takes to face reality. For me, this film hopefully works like a time capsule, preserving the delicate beauty of a lost time while demanding how a society can begin to forget and turn away from problems. It’s a personal reckoning, but also holds out the hope that the next generation might choose differently.”
See the trailer below:
