To the Lake

The main shooting location in Archangelsk Oblast was the locality of Malozhma in the Onezhskiy District. This location lacked street lighting and it had no cell phone network. Moreover, right in the middle of the production, the village suffered a running-water outage for two days: the water-pipes ruptured right at the shooting location. Besides, during the course of the shooting, the crew burned a hole in a wooden bridge after building a fire on it in accordance with the script. Since it was the only link to other inhabited communities, the bridge was urgently repaired.

Despite this incident, the locals were very friendly towards the outsider cinema crew: they not only helped organize the shoots but also participated in the project as extras. Malozhma has a population of 400 people, most of them elderly.

Referenced in Close-Up: Midsommar (2023)