“Why weigh all this! Why calculate? How we all fear to live! What does it mean, pray tell me, what does it mean? How we pity ourselves! — I don't know what I am saying. — Perhaps this is wrong and I should not speak thus — But I understand! I am struggling like a fly that beats against the glass. I long for liberty [..]” (Maxim Gorky, “Summerfolk”)

We accumulate ideals and notions of what life should and how we should be in it, until a moment comes when we are confronted by reality and experience disappointment by what we see when we finally open our eyes and look at ourselves. “Summerfolk” depicts people living in illusions, making constant excuses for not living the way they would like to live. Unable to cope with the ambiguity of their own selves and of the world, they spend their time drinking and talking, talking so very much.
In the centre of his play “Summerfolk” Gorky placed his peers – the first-generation wealthy middle class that no longer had to struggle to simply survive. Latvian society is currently in a similar situation. The economically active population that holds political and social capital are the forty-to-sixty-year-olds who have reached a certain level of prosperity, but still carry with them the trauma of the drastic changes their lives went through when the Soviet Union collapsed. It is a generation whose obedience has been instilled with a beating and a firm hand. People who thirsted after a gentle touch and attention as kids and now greedily try to quench their thirst with social status and never-ending attempts to earn love.
In the centre of this production the creative team has placed humans – their longing, laughter, tears, guilt, search for love. The characters of Gorky’s play are seen in a video projection – the summerfolk who are stuck in their lives, caught in a noose and can’t find a way out. The sound is turned off. On the stage – four young actors lending their voices to the conversations taking place on the screen.

Film crew, assistants: Kristaps Baķis, Normunds Balodis, Ieva Kauliņa, Ansis Kurmists, Maija Pavlova, Evija Sedola, Nikola Suhareva, Eva Škenderska, Jevgeņija Šermeņeva
Special thanks for the support with filming locations to: Agnese and Juris Grebže, Agris Kauliņš, owner of “Beerfox Artisan Beer Bar” Michael Perdue, Inna Sokolova.