Stop-Zemlia
Russia & the Former Soviet Union
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2h 2m
Directed by Kateryna Gornostai • Drama • 2021 • 122 minutes
Hanging out with friends, smoking too much, spinning bottles and kissing, making mistakes, playing, refusing to accept, dreaming with open eyes – life as a teenager can be overwhelmingly beautiful and difficult at the same time. Introverted high school girl Masha sees herself as an outsider unless she’s hanging out with her two best friends, Yana and Senia, who share her non-conformist status. While trying to navigate through her last year of school, Masha falls in love in a way that forces her out of her comfort zone. In her debut, the Ukrainian director Kateryna Gornostai composes a deeply emotional and multi-layered portrait of a generation whilst seamlessly flowing between the fictional and the documental.
“This gentle, authentic-feeling coming-of-age drama from Ukrainian filmmaker Kateryna Gornostai premiered at the Berlin festival in 2021. Since the Russian invasion, her film has become unbearably poignant.” —The Guardian
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