Kyuka Before Summer’s End

Babis takes his twin children Konstantinos and Elsa (among the best-sketched, most-charming sibling duos in recent memory) sailing through the Greek isles, engaging in all the affection and jousting common to single parents and teenage offspring. It’s a seemingly standard trip laced with secret intent: Babis is en route to finally introduce the mother who abandoned Konstantinos and Elsa in infancy, a meeting that will dredge up difficult pasts and untreated hurt. Kostis Charamountanis’s feature debut is nevertheless a constant pleasure, its complexity and detail placed against piercingly blue seas, verdant flora, and glowing sunsets. Festival favorites Aftersun or Murina may come to mind, yet Kyuka moves at a speed all its own—peppered by hypnotic documentary interludes and tense, dazzlingly edited exchanges—up to Charamountanis’s perfectly orchestrated climax.