UKR, FR, PL 2023 | Director, Script: Alisa Kovalenko | Camera: Alisa Kovalenko, Serhiy Stetsenko | Editor: Maryna Maykovska, Kasia Boniecka | Sound: Mariia Nesterenko | Production: Valery Kalmykov, Yana Kalmykova, Oleksly Kobelev | KoProduction: Telewizja Polska S.a., Current Time TV, ARTE France | Colour | DCP | 100 min | ukrainian, russian OV with english + german SUB | FSK 0, Altersempfehlung ab 15 Jahren | Stranger Films Sales

“I don’t remember a single year in my life as well as 2014.”
– “It’s as if a new timeline began at that moment.”

Having grown up among the ruins, minefields, bomb shelters and coal mines of the Donbas, Andriy, Illia, Lera, Liza and Ruslan live in a world where, ever since 2014, shelling and gunfire have been as commonplace as the ever-present yearning for a better life. An expedition to the Himalayas gives the five Ukrainian teenagers the chance to fulfil this dream for a brief moment, before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February of 2022 ends up destroying the last remnants of hope. With its sensitive, unobtrusively perceptive gaze, the film paints a moving portrait of a generation of young people surrounded by darkness, who are nonetheless – or perhaps all the more – able to recognise and celebrate the fragile beauty of life. (©Berlinale, Generation 14plus, 2023)

„Alongside the specificities of growing up in a war zone, however, the universality of coming of age is also very present. In particular, the kids are shown to be enmeshed in numerous care-giving relationships within their families and community, endearingly poised at the precise moment of taking on responsibility while still often being overwhelmed and daunted by it. Continuing this tender bridging of adulthood-childhood, director Alisa Kovalenko’s camera is clearly embedded in their world and a part of their gang. It’s there at the lake lounging around on a lazy summer day and it’s there when some of the boys are stripping telephone wires and have to run for cover at the sound of shelling. The perspective feels very much from within, without any patronizing or preconceived agenda being imposed, simply allowing the kids the space to be themselves.“ (Zoe Aiano, East European Film Bulletin, 2023)