Anna Nikitina

Contemporary Russia. Nadya gives up her dream of becoming a champion figure skater when she is hospitalized with an injury. But then she meets Sasha, a hockey player, who decides to teach her to believe in herself and her dream again.

A young man named Kesha returns to his village after a long absence. He has completed a prison term but now simply wants to live a quiet, normal life. His younger brother, only 17, has plans for college. However, the brothers’ perspectives on the future shift dramatically when Kesha joins a gold-mining crew.

The film focuses on women from a family living in southern Russia: two sisters, their mother, and grandmother. Every summer, the younger women visit the elders, returning to their roots and embracing a traditional way of life. This household is deeply matriarchal—men are present but play secondary roles. The film’s space is filled with rituals: fortune-telling, herb gathering, and bathing. Here, the sacred is intertwined with the mundane. The daughters follow the life paths of their mother, who once traced the steps of the older women in the family.

Lesya, a dreamy young folk dancer, is overcome with sadness on her 13th birthday. She is surrounded by annoying relatives, her father is in prison, and her mother constantly forces her to dance. Lesya escapes reality by hiding in her own imagination and fantasies. But the girl finally learns to stand up for herself after unexpectedly receiving a mysterious gift that turns out to be a heavy burden. Now Lesya is forced to find a balance between two worlds: the cruel reality of adulthood and the carefree imagination of childhood...