ROADS TO KOKTEBEL

Without a penny in their pockets, a father and his son wander through the vastnesses of Russia and the Ukraine. Their destination is Koktebel at the Black Sea, where a steady wind blows. This is where the father’s sister lives. Because of their lack of money, the two are dependent on the kindness of their fellow men – under good circumstances they can end up with a dry, warm place to sleep and potatoes for dinner. The father – who was an aeronautic-engineer, but lost everything when his wife’s death led him to drinking – takes odd jobs along the way; one of them is repairing the roof of an eccentric old man’s house, where they can stay for a while. At a carousal a few days later, accusations of theft fly around: there is a fight. The father is shot during the controversy and they both flee. In a nearby village, a single doctor named Xenia gives them shelter and tends to the wounded man. When a romantic relationship between the two ensues, the eleven year old son becomes jealous, impatiently waiting for the journey to continue. After the father makes clear that he wants to stay a little longer, the son sneaks out of the house and continues on his own. A truck driver takes him to Koktebel, where he sees the sea for the first time. But his aunt has left for the summer… The two young directors Boris Chlebnikov und Aleksej Popogrebskij tell this father-and-son story with long takes and as little dialogue as possible, drawing on the beauty of the landscape and the appeal of their cast.