How I Ended This Summer

How I Ended This Summer

Cast: Pavel Danilov, Grigory Dobrygin, Sergei Gulybin, Sergei Puskepalis
Director: Alexei Popogrebsky
Genre: Thriller
Rated: M
Running Time: 124 minutes

Synopsis: Set against the spectacular, otherworldly landscape of the windswept Arctic Circle, writer/director Alexei Popogrebsky's multi-award winning psychological thriller How I Ended This Summer is an immersive and compelling morality tale of isolation and survival against the elements.

Russian heartthrob Grigory Dobrygin stars as Pavel, a young graduate posted to a remote meteorological station over the summer months. His gruff, noncommunicative co-worker Sergei (Sergei Puskepalis) takes pride in the repetitive work and is rattled by Pavel's youthful carelessness and complacency, but the two go about their shared day-to-day lives, albeit with a heavy dose of mutual distrust. But when Pavel receives a gravely urgent radio message that out of panic, fear and intimidation he fails to pass on, he inadvertently triggers a series of events that spin inexorably out of control…

Filmed entirely on location in the easternmost tip of Russia, this absorbing tale features exceptional performances and unforgettable cinematography; Alexei Popogrebsky skilfully exercises a slow-burning grip over the viewer, expansively capturing the majestic yet terrifying landscape to visceral effect.

Release Date: 7th of April, 2011


Directors Statement
I think I was 14, a city kid, by chance reading diaries of Pinegin, a companion to Sedov's 1912 tragic effort to reach North Pole. That was a hastily-planned expedition, and when their vessel got ice-bound some thousand miles both from the goal and the nearest dwelling, the leader calmly stated: 'So we will spend the winter here'. (In fact it became two winters for the crew, and eternity for Sedov. This was before radio, emergency air lifts or GPS became consumer goods). At that time 'a winter' felt like half of my life. It still often does.

Ever since I was fascinated with this ability to come to terms with notions of time and space drastically different from our common scale of hours and minutes or blocks and metro stops. This film, essentially, is a story of two personal (and incompatible) time-and-space scales. All of us being city dwellers, we tell the story from the point of view of the younger character whose life experience is much closer to ours. However, in making this film our effort was to become subjects to the nature of extreme North, to let go of rigid pre-planned concepts and be open and attentive to what it could offer us. And it had a lot to offer. I still can't believe how it felt at times.
-Alexei Popogrebsky