Summer. Zero(2023)

Summer. Zero is a Russian coming-of-age film set in a small Volga town where fifteen-year-old Sasha navigates the messy threshold between childhood and adulthood. Confident and resourceful, he's determined to grow up fast—earning money, pursuing a girl from his class, and confronting a bully from the working-class outskirts who represents everything he wants to prove himself against. As summer arrives, Sasha's ambitions collide with the reality of adolescence, testing his self-assurance and forcing him to reckon with what maturity actually means. The film captures the restless energy and contradictions of teenage life with unflinching honesty, exploring desire, friendship, and the cost of growing up too quickly in a provincial setting.