Anatoly Vasiliev

Produced for newly independent Sakha television in the early nineties, Summer House is a pioneering document of a film culture in the making. The directorial debut of actor Anatoly Vasiliev, who also stars, the film tells the seemingly simple story of a man returning to his native village to purchase a house, only to find himself caught between the worlds of the living and the dead. Drawing on deep wells of Sakha spirituality and folk symbolism, and cast with local, non-professional actors, Summer House is a rarely-seen gem of independent filmmaking and a key piece of Sakha film history.

The story of a man who returned to his native village and remembers his happy childhood

The 1920s. Taking advantage of the fact that Soviet power had not yet come to Yakutia, the merchants made the locals completely dependent on their will. Merchant Oparin stopped exchanging gunpowder and products for furs, he wanted to find out where the gold-bearing stream was located. But the chief of the Sadyuk tribe did not violate the law of the ancestors and did not reveal the secret of the Golden Stream.

Produced for newly independent Sakha television in the early nineties, Summer House is a pioneering document of a film culture in the making. The directorial debut of actor Anatoly Vasiliev, who also stars, the film tells the seemingly simple story of a man returning to his native village to purchase a house, only to find himself caught between the worlds of the living and the dead. Drawing on deep wells of Sakha spirituality and folk symbolism, and cast with local, non-professional actors, Summer House is a rarely-seen gem of independent filmmaking and a key piece of Sakha film history.

A tragic comedy of the era of stagnation, a time of prosperity of "blat" and telephone law. The main character of the picture is put in charge of the warehouse and they want to make him their own person in order to use him for selfish interests: to give someone something for the gang, to arrange someone, to allocate someone a car, all on acquaintance, all to "their" people. After all, it is not for nothing that people say: we will count our own people.

Okhonon (Athanasius) was film made for television at Gosteleradio YASSR and broadcast in 1987. For TV, the edited 16mm film was transferred to a video reel, where the sound, music, and titles were superimposed. In the 1990s, the recording suffered and only the last minutes were preserved. For a long time, the film was considered lost. In 2020, the edited film was found and digitized. The original credits, soundtrack, and soundtrack were not preserved.