One of this year’s standout successes at Venice, where it was awarded Leone del Futuro for Best First Feature. In this sensitively told and visually arresting meditation on suspended time, Russian-born filmmaker Nastia Korkia revisits a childhood summer spent at her grandparents’ dacha. Set against the haunting backdrop of the Chechen war, the warmth of an endless summer contrasts with a looming shadow of death and destruction. The distant rumble of war seeps into games and everyday life, tainting the air with whispered threats and hushed tragedies as they reflect the desperate need to turn away from the atrocity at hand. Meticulous sound design and a masterful use of chiaroscuro shape an impressionistic diary of Katia, a withdrawn young girl caught in the midst of a family crisis. The film’s lyricism and harsh reality converge to awaken an acute awareness of how all that we have can vanish in an instant.