9 movies with a summer mood. Choice of director and screenwriter Evgeny Izrailit

“In the Bright Sun” (1960), René Clement.

Sixties, young Alain Delon, bright sunshine, passion, money. Many years before Matt Damon introduced Tom Ripley to the general public, we already had the opportunity to look at the temptations of sunny summer Italy through the eyes of Alain Delon in the role that made him a superstar. And now, despite other adaptations of Patricia Highsmith’s novel, it is René Clément’s film that plunges us most deeply into the Italian summer inaccessible to mere mortals.

“Overtaking” (1962), Dino Risi.

It’s summer again, it’s sunny again, it’s Italy again. The country is at the peak of an economic boom, and a young student named Roberto can’t find himself. He is no longer a representative of the old Italy, but neither can he cope with the idea that the future of the country is in his hands. A chance encounter with the overgrown Bruno turns into an adventure two days long, though really a lifetime.

“I’m Walking on Moscow” (1964), Georgy Danelia.

The distinctive feature of all of Georgi Danelia’s films is that they can be revisited endlessly. In this, perhaps the warmest example of Thaw films, we are introduced simultaneously to the realities of Soviet life – metro construction, the city, tourists, queues – and to the poetry of youth. An incredibly rich day, which begins with words about absolute happiness and ends with a song, unpretentiously reflects the things without which life is meaningless – faith, hope and love.

“The Graduate” (1967), Mike Nichols.

Another movie about youth, hope and love. Although perhaps more about jumping headlong into the maelstrom. Benjamin, an excellent student, an athlete, a Komsomol member, faces the fact that it is time for him to take the last step into adulthood, but he can’t make it. Instead, he engages in sabotage – first by having an affair with his father’s partner’s wife, then by falling in love with her daughter. It is the latter that brings him out of his torpor, but does this love have a future? I’d like to believe it does. At least in the summer.

“Jaws” (1975), Steven Spielberg.

Since summer is a time of adventure, I would like to share a movie whose vivid emotions are motivated not by an existential crisis or even love, but by necessity. Released in the summer of 1975, the killer shark hunt picture not only broke all box office records, but was rumored to have scared many people away from beach vacations for years to come. Fifty years later, Jaws remains the best genre film in cinematic history, as well as the perfect excuse to hold the hand of a terrified companion.

“Before” trilogy: “Before Dawn” (1995), “Before Sunset” (2004), “Before Midnight” (2013), Richard Linklater

Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy reacquires her love. Despite the fact that the plot of the romantic movie is as old as the world, the meetings between Jesse and Celine cannot be denied a certain freshness. Three times at intervals of nine years, we can observe one day – let it be night in the first film and evening in the second – in the lives of two people who, of course, are made for each other, and they themselves gradually begin to realize it. We are invited to observe three stages in their relationship – getting to know each other, realizing and fighting for love, and each time we get to know, fall in love and fight together with these two accidental companions who found each other on the train from Budapest to Vienna.

“Slipping Beauty” (1996), Bernardo Bertolucci.

Everyone has a summer in their life that changed their life. For Lucy, it is the summer after her mother’s suicide, the summer of her nineteenth birthday, and the summer of a trip to Italy, where there is a boy with whom she has been in love for four years. In addition to hoping for mutual love, Lucy also dreams of being able to uncover the biggest mystery of her life, namely who her real father is.

“The Return” (2003), Andrei Zvyagintsev.

It seems to me that it is impossible to retell the plot of Andrey Zvyagintsev’s first feature film. Or rather, it doesn’t make any sense. Their father unexpectedly returns to the lives of two brothers, and the three of them go on a short trip to Ladoga. After this trip, life will never be the same, and neither for the characters, nor for the audience, nor for the creators of this beautiful picture.

“Kingdom of the Full Moon” (2012), Wes Anderson

Sometimes you want to see the world through the eyes of children, and there’s hardly a more appropriate movie for that than Full Moon Kingdom. Working in his usual style, Anderson tells the story of the first, pure, childish love, raising acquaintances, meetings, breakups, obstacles to a level unattainable for adults. Although it may be the other way around – it is adults, nostalgic for their youth, like no one else can immerse themselves in Anderson’s strange world and relive those feelings that seem to have remained far in the past.

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Evgeny Izrailit is a Russian and American director and screenwriter who now lives and works in Europe. Evgeny’s films and screenplays have repeatedly attracted the attention of the international film community, including the grand prize at the French national screenwriting competition SOPADIN and participation in festivals throughout Europe with the Kenyan drama “View From Above”. Yevgeny Izrailit is currently working on an adaptation of Guzel Yakhina’s global bestseller – “Echelon to Samarkand”. – drama about the famine of the 1920s, told in the form of an adventure story. Shooting of the picture will begin in Uzbekistan early next year, and the release is scheduled for the end of 2026.