Down The River

Teenagers attend summer camp, passengers on a river cruise dance to a Tina Turner hit, children play around monuments, and actors reenact battles from the Second World War. These scenes are captured in observational, seemingly peaceful imagery, where everyday life, history, memories, and age-old rituals blend into one another.

Yet, just beneath the surface, something else stirs. The imagery and rituals of war remain a powerful presence—in games, ceremonies, monuments, and the glorification of heroism. Filmmaker Ruslan Fedotov (Where Are We Headed) allows these connections to emerge naturally, in an observational film that reveals how collective memory—almost imperceptibly—permeates the lives and imaginations of a new generation.

As the legacy of past wars is passed down, the film poses an uncomfortable question: what kind of future is possible when the traumas and myths of earlier conflicts continue to shape the present, and every path seems to lead toward war?