Still Free

A direct-cinema poem by acclaimed filmmaker Vadim Kostrov. Filmed at a lake near the town of Svobodny (“Freedom”) in 2022, months before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What begins as a portrait of youth and love becomes shadowed by history.

A film must confront the world in which it is made, but also the one in which it is shown. When Vadim Kostrov accompanied the young couple Katya and Kostya to a nearby lake, and filmed them with the directness for which he is known, he couldn’t foresee the political implications of these images. At the time, Kostya was about to join the Russian military – a decision he came to regret later on. Innocent play by the water is shadowed by war’s imminence: every gesture and every glimmer of light bears the weight of what is to come.

Programme section: Between Film and Art
Original title: Пока Свободный | Year: 2023 | Duration: 31′
Country: France | Language: Not spoken
Director: Vadim Kostrov | Production: Mal de Mer Films | Screenplay: Vadim Kostrov | Cinematography: Vadim Kostrov | Editing: Vadim Kostrov | Sound: Vadim Kostrov

FESTIVALS & AWARDS (SELECTION)

Berlinale Critic’s week, 2023 | Jeonju International Film Festival, 2023 | Black Canvas Festival, 2023 – Special Mention | Valdivia International Film Festival, 2023 | DocBuenos Aires, 2023 | Alterna Film Festival, 2024 – Best Film, Jury Award

DIRECTOR’S BIO 

One of the most radical and prolific filmmakers to emerge this decade, at 23 years old Vadim Kostrov entered the international film circuit with six feature films within a single year, all made in his hometown of Nizhny Tagil in the Urals. These works premiered at eminent festivals including Doclisboa and FIDMarseille, with a retrospective presented at FICUNAM in Mexico City, and “Summer” (2021) receiving a Special Jury Mention at Sheffield Doc. Produced outside institutional frameworks, Kostrov’s films fuse direct cinema and observational nonfiction into meditations on time, light, and landscape – both internal and external. His cinema is one of presence and emotional saturation, where attention itself becomes a form of experience. Since fleeing Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, Kostrov has lived in exile, first in Istanbul and now in France, where displacement and memory have taken on new prominence in his work. His recent exile films – post-diary impressions seeking within abstraction – have screened at Doc Films Chicago as part of the year-long retrospective Manifested Time: Vadim Kostrov, in a focus program at Ecrã Brazil, and at TIFF (In Transit).