A trio of friends is about to graduate and each of them is slowly preparing to leave their hometown. They’re accompanied by their doubts regarding the unknown, fear of losing their friends, and other insecurities of adolescence. Director Kateryna Gornostai works with non-actors and the result is an authentic picture of an emotional period, of petty infatuations and enchantments. The film is unique for its hybrid form – it contains many documentary scenes, but at the same time large sections were written for the protagonists specifically.

Kateryna Gornostai

Director, screenwriter, and editor from western Ukraine studied at the School of Documentary Film and Theatre in Moscow and in other places. At first, she directed exclusively documentaries, but later began filming fiction films and hybrid forms, such as that of Stop-Zemila, which was included in the Generation section at the Berlinale, followed by screenings at the festivals in Shanghai, Odesa, Riga, Thessaloniki, or Karlovy Vary.