The summer light on the Zeya River floods the image, scorches the bodies of the characters. That summer luminosity, which gradually fades away as the twilight hours pass, submerges Still Free -a film by Russian director Vadim Kostrov that competes in this fifth edition of the INSTAR Festival- in a subtly warm and melancholic atmosphere. Kostrov behaves in Still Free as a sensualist, a poet devoted to the spiritual and scenic gift of the lake where he films; there, intermingled with the people enjoying themselves on the shore, in the water. That landscape quality approaches at times the temperature of a Sorolla; a closeness postponed, however, by the vibrations in the image of the uncertainties, the latent fears on the back of the pleasure experienced by the characters during those hours of recreation.

Known for his trilogy Orpheus, Summer and Winter, Kostrov documents in this film two days, a weekend, of the summer vacation that is almost over for Katya and Kostya. Just as he is attentive to the natural beauty, the filmmaker - camera in hand, as if he were shooting a home movie - is always attentive to his characters, never leaves them for a moment, observes their bodies, records their conversations, talks to them, zooms in to record their caresses while they bathe in the river, captures in close-ups their kisses and the complicit glances they give each other? Even in this public space, Still Free manages to be an astonishingly intimate, even lyrical, film that tenderly involves the viewers in the experience lived by their accomplices, who respond naturally and affectionately to the presence of the camera.

Still Free is far from being just a contemplative essay, of course. It is a challenging film, whose visual serenity, as suggested, welcomes a warp of tensions under that observational criterion pulsed by the camera, only apparently enraptured with the grace of the everyday life of the place. (Moreover, the spontaneous record is supported by an intrepid and compact narrative and editing structure that leaves the film a few steps away from fiction). ) The flirtation of the lens with the charm that emanates from the meeting of the bodies of Katya and Kostya -young people barely in their twenties- surreptitiously becomes a parable about the immediate fate of a country and its people. And in particular of the generation that in those days bursts into adulthood.

The film is divided into two moments (each of the days of recreation witnessed) delimited by the couple's farewells as evening falls and they return home. In the transition from the first to the second day -like a rush in the midst of so much peacefulness-, we learn that Kostya is about to enter the Russian army. He has been preparing for it for some time, and now he has some doubts about such a decision. The summer vacation seems like a farewell, but what will happen tomorrow? Later we will learn about Katya's interest in going to university. Both are confident that nothing will stand in the way of their love, that they will be able to realize their plans in the future.

But what are the chances of fulfilling individual desires, expectations for the future, in a country - as Katya says - only theoretically democratic, which in reality is an authoritarian country? Still Free places before our eyes the twilight of a few young people for whom night will soon come, the night of a nation headed for war. The bucolic atmosphere at the lake only adds to the emotional impact of the emotional shock of what the day may hold for these young men.

They, though anxious, are confident that they will overcome the obstacles. In the last minutes of the film, the second and final farewell is imminent; the images are charged with a strange gravity. As we see Katya and Kostya take the road back to the city, we sense the very closing of Still Free as the resigned farewell to a chapter of their lives, to an entire era perhaps.

At the end, the director presents a poster where he takes sides regarding the recorded images. A bit also to do justice to a premonitory compliment from Kostya, who said to him at some point during recess hours: “Vadim, you can't imagine how useful you are with your camera. You're a saving bastard.”

In that final poster, Kostrov recounts that, after those days, he was only able to meet Katya and Kostya two more times. “Kostya complained that the army was not what he expected,” he writes. “Later I learned that they broke up. Katya entered a university in Arkhangelsk [and] Kostya continued to serve in the army in Svobodny.” He then laments, “Today, March 30, 2022, marks one month since the terrible and senseless war in Ukraine. It is very likely that Kostya was sent there as cannon fodder and without consent.”

Vadim Kostrov begins his film by recalling a biblical verse (Corinthians 13:13) that unveils the meaning with which he makes available to his viewers the images of Still Free, evocation of a time that will never return, annihilated by Russian imperialist policy: “For peace, youth, joy and summer, with hope, faith and love. No to war,” we read there.