HOW I ENDED THIS SUMMER

The experienced meteorologist Sergey and his intern Pavel work in a polar station on an island in the Arctic Ocean. Sergey has long got used to the day-to-day challenges posed by the harsh natural environment, but Pavel finds it hard to cope with the utter isolation of their situation. Manning the station alone one day, Pavel receives a radio message from the mainland: Sergey’s family has been involved in a serious accident. A ship has already been dispatched to pick up his colleague. Pavel cannot bring himself to break the news to Sergey, and the young man’s predicament mounts as he covers up the fact in every subsequent radio exchange. A vicious circle of defiance and fear now builds up around the two men’s mutual suspicion of each other, and the situation escalates. The grandeur of nature offers no protection from the fog, cold and gnawing hunger which causes Pavel’s neurotic paranoia to become worse. The two men’s will to survive is increasingly put to the test, and we begin to wonder if survival is even what they want. Two existential battles unfold: man against nature, youth against age. Forced to act at last, Pavel is already hopelessly entangled in a web of desperation and fear. The film was shot on location at a meteorological station built in the 1930s and still in operation. The real-life scientists based there dutifully transmitted their four-hourly readings while shooting went on all around them.