PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL SHORTFEST 2025 REVIEW! Trying to teach a teenager how to drive is stressful enough, but to do it in a war zone seems like cruel and unusual punishment. Filmmaker Anastasiya Gruba’s short film Driving Lessons is a drama about a father (Konstantin Danilyuk) helping his daughter (Angelina Samchyk) drive in wartime Kyiv, Ukraine.
It’s a standard drive with the pair discussing topics like having chicken for dinner and which other country the daughter can attend college in, until they reach a checkpoint and the father is issued a summons. The father becomes increasingly frustrated because he knows what this means: a ticket to the frontline of the battle with Russia.
“Trying to teach a teenager how to drive…in a war zone…”
I don’t blame him; he has a family, and he says his wife made him promise that he wouldn’t go. The daughter throws in a twist, however, and says that one of her friends’ fathers has never been happier and felt more alive than when he was on the front lines. There’s also one final twist that complicates the whole thing, but I won’t spoil it.
Anastasiya Gruba’s Driving Lessons is great at making you think about the problems of war that don’t normally pop to the forefront of your mind. Konstantin Danilyuk and Angelina Samchyk are both very believable in their roles, and the whole movie has an authentic feel. For me, the theme is that there is pain and difficulty in learning, but it makes us stronger in the end.
Driving Lessons screened at the 2025 Palm Springs International ShortFest.
"…great at making you think..."
