Stephen Dalton: “The feature debut of young writer-director Ella Manzheeva is a small but haunting character study with strong visual appeal.”

Alissa Simon: “A powerfully atmospheric but narratively understated debut for talented Kalmykia-born helmer-writer Ella Manzheeva.”

Carmen Gray: "As well as making the most of the natural landscape, the film is elegantly shot with frames that close off space using curtains and doorways – a technique that works to emphasize the protagonist’s confined state.”

Tory Kamen: "In 2012, she wrote the screenplay for The Gulls,which was published in Art of Cinema, one of Russia's leading film journals. Her previous film, the short Within Her, There's a Steppe, was featured in over twenty international film festivals, where it won numerous awards.”

Ozeanische Gefühle: “Director Ella Manzheeva shows Kalmykia as a space and leaden state of mind. Until the film finally fans open into a poetic self-liberation. Elza is transformed and the unattainable-seeming sea comes to her in the form of fish that flit through her wash basin.”

Jörg Becker: “From her village traditions, the road of the closed, misunderstood woman leads to urban modernity.”