How I Ended This Summer

• Grigori Dobrygin Pawel
• Sergei Puskepalis: Sergei

How I Ended This Summer (Russian: Как я провёл этим летом / Kak yes prowjol etim LeTom; German-language TV Title: My Summer with Sergei ) is a feature film by Russian director Alexei Popogrebsky from 2010 The psychological thriller is about a young student who the. spends the summer together with an experienced but maverick meteorologists on a small research station in the Arctic Ocean.

The film had its world premiere in competition at the 60th International Film Festival of Berlin, and ran on April 1, 2010 in the Russian cinemas. Theatrical release in German-speaking countries was on 1 September 2011.

Genesis

In How I Ended This Summer is the third feature film by Alexei Popogrebsky, for which he also wrote the screenplay. The filmmaker was inspired here by the diaries Nikolai Pinegins, which he had read as a 14- year-old. Pinegin Georgi Sedov was accompanied on its tragic ending Polar Expedition ( 1912-1914 ). Popogrebsky fascinated by the unusual conception of time and space that prevail at the North Pole.

The psychological thriller was filmed on the Chukchi Peninsula. One of the two main roles confided Popogrebsky Sergei Puskepalis. With the famous Russian theater director, filmmaker already on his previous feature film Prostyje weschtschi (2007) had worked. For the 24 -year-old Grigori Dobrygin it was after Chernaya Molniya (2009) only the second feature film. Borissewitsch novel and its film company produced Koktebel How I Ended This Summer, as well as the two previous film projects of Popogrebsky.

Action

After completion of the University of the young Pavel takes a three-month internship true on a small research island in the Arctic Ocean. In the run-down weather station of the lanky student meets the older, bear -like Sergei. The experienced meteorologist who spent several years on the island and has become a sullen loner. He leaves Pawel talking and makes him feel at every opportunity that he is not welcome. The work is monotonous: every three hours, the two by giving the measured weather data by radio to the mainland. Since 1936, no layer has been missed, such as Sergei explained.

The men slowly learn to get along and stay is coming to an end. Sergei looks with concern the imminent return to the mainland, where waiting for him a wife and a son. As Sergei one day decides to go fishing for two days in a nearby lagoon to get his wife smoked fish, Pavel remains alone in the weather station. He then considered the weather station as a great adventure playground, jumping over rusty steel drums and whiling away the time with FPS games. As it reaches a radio message from the mainland, which states that Sergei's family was killed in a serious accident. A ship will come and pick up the meteorologists of the island. Pawel does not dare the tendency to congestions Sergei to deliver the bad news. He does everything possible to hide the message in front of him and looks forward to the arrival of the ship, which could relieve him of his duty. But the ship stuck in the ice.

When, after several days Sergei learns of the tragedy, there is only hatred between the two men. The anxious Pawel increases into a paranoia and tried the older with radioactively contaminated lake trout to poison. The plan fails, however, the rescuing ship reaches the station. Sergei decides but to stay on the island.

Criticism

From the German critics confirmed some that the film got the Bears at the Berlinale right. They called the work " visual force ", and his images spectacular, impressive or " of archaic force ". You are fabricating " the bridge between impressive natural vistas and landscapes of the soul so well that attacking polar bears so strong act like a nervous twitching mouth angle of Grigori Dobrygin ". The two actors are captivating, her play " profiled sharp " and " rule the whole range of vulnerability to hardness ." You got because the calculated structure, though very little space, and the figure of Sergei was not always consistent, as dramaturgical needs subject. Kept most critics "concentrated" the narrative for " gripping " or " captivating ", the Mirror reviewers translated from their colleagues explicitly with the ruling from the film is deadly boring.

A " secular [s ] psychological drama " called the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the movie " back deep spiritual roots to Dostoyevsky and other Russian seekers of God. " The reason that the figures are not negligible in front of the backdrop of the film epd saw FIlm in his ". weird psychology and a penchant for subtle comedy on the edge of the bearing Koller " the story had its comic moments; despite the escalation of the film retains its laconic and suggest " never about the thriller gorgeous or Dramatic. " For the Tages-Anzeiger, the film was "a kind of thriller", with a superbly designed soundtrack. "She's an independent review of the mental breakdowns. " The most detailed filmdienst went to the drive, and classified it as a thriller. Popogrebsky draw " with its cool, dense polar Thriller an intense image of helplessness, distrust and paranoia in an extreme environment. " To style it says: " Refined, closely the power of misunderstanding, speechlessness and careless accidents is woven, the Popogrebsky about his protagonists throws. With subtle means and only sparse dialogue he describes Fold as Pavel's immaturity and shame gradually into fear and hatred. The boy, that leads straight to disaster panic, carries over well to the audience, but one of the qualities of the film is to make the tunnel perspective Pavel repeated critical in question. "

Awards

Grigori Dobrygin and Sergei Puskepalis won the Best Actor Award of the 60th Berlin Film Festival. The camera work of Pavel Kostomarow was also awarded the Silver Bear ( " Outstanding Artistic Contribution "). In the same year Kostomarow received a nomination for the European Film Awards.

Other awards and nominations (selection)

• 2010: Prize of the German Foreign Office and FIPRESCI Prize at the GoEast Film Festival
• 2010: Best Film of the London Film Festival
• 2010: Gold Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival
• 2010: Nika ( Best Director, as well as five other nominations )
• 2011: Golden Eagle of the Russian Film Academy ( Best Film, Best Screenplay )

Criticism mirror

Positive

• Cinema No. 9/2011, pp. 58, not shown Short Review: How I Ended This Summer
• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 3, 2011, p 37, drawn from short comments " hjr. ": Arctic cold
• The Press, February 22, 2010, Berlinale report by Markus Keuschnigg: Honey with the bears: Turkish Berlinale victory
• Tages-Anzeiger, January 26, 2012 Züritipp p.6, by Pascal Blum: At World's End
• The time, February 21, 2010 Berlinale Short Review by Carolin Ströbele: The Festival of Darkness

Slightly positive

• Filmdienst No. 18 /2011, pp. 30-31, by Jens Hinrichsen: How I Ended This Summer

Negative

• The mirror, mirror Culture No. 9 /2011, Short review of Daniel Sander: The most wonderful thing in