In Crystal Bear Awarded Stop-Zemlia, presented at the 34th Trieste Film Festival, director Kateryna Gornostai captures the skin-crawling feeling of what it is to be a teenager.
Stop-Zemlia (starring Maria Fedorchenko, Arsenii Markov, Yana Isaienko, Oleksandr Ivanov) premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2021 where it won the Crystal Bear for the Best Film in the Generation 14+ competition. The film was shown this year as part of Wild Roses: Women Filmmakers in Europe. Focus on Ukraine section at Trieste Film Festival.
I was of two minds about seeing one of the Ukrainian features at Trieste. Film festivals have put up Ukrainian contributions more prominently since the start of last year. We’ve seen and heard about Klondike, A House Made of Splinters and many titles containing the name Mariupol since (like 20 Days in Mariupol). With its Wild Roses: Women Filmmakers in Europe. Focus on Ukraine section, Trieste Film Festival offered a substantial selection. I was in two minds because I didn’t feel I had the necessary mental resilience to bear witness to the casualties of war.
But I was wrong to assume that the Ukrainian section would be predominantly political. On the contrary, Wild Roses: Women Filmmakers in Europe. Focus on Ukraine scheduled both features and shorts from as far back as 2016 to present day. Klondike was there, sure. As was a short from 2023: I Didn’t Want to Make a War Film. But war played the second fiddle on the screen. The rest of the selection was more of a collection of fragments of life in Ukraine – street market sellers, factory workers, people falling in love, people trying to rise above their dire circumstances. Stop-Zemlia from 2021 focused on everyday lives of middle-of-the-road teenagers.
It feels hard, even silly to try and describe the plot of the film that takes its name from a teenage pastime that’s played like blindfolded tag. Just like people with blindfolds swim through air in balletic slow-motion, so do the scenes of this film. Dialogues are few and rarely expository. The trio Masha, Yana and Senia are shown in class, at school trips, hanging out at home or at house parties. They talk about practical things one moment and philosophise about the meaning of life in the next. Nothing specific is chewed on and yet everything that is inferred is understood.
The film dances between meditative scenes of friendship and infatuation and talking-head interviews. Instead of breaking the spell that the ‘fictional’ scenes cast, the ‘documentary’ scenes imbue them with added significance. By the time the film’s two hour runtime is up, the separation that the characters will have to face after their upcoming graduation is all the more bitter.
Stop-Zemlia never misses a step even if the pacing drags at times. Writer/director Kateryna Gornostai confidently leads the story to its point, but more importantly captures the skin-crawling feeling of what it is to be a teenager. Gornostai doesn’t shy away from topics of bullying, trauma and even self-harm and handles them gracefully and respectfully.
Although Stop-Zemlia was released in 2021, seeing these young bright-eyed teenagers on the cusp of adulthood in 2023 is heartbreaking. Questions pour in: How many of them were conscripted? How many still have their homes? How many of them have had to flee? And that’s what the magic of movies is. You can sit for two hours with three fictional characters in a dark room and come out lamenting entire nations.
Film Fest Report is excited to team up with the Trieste Film Festival, as official media partner for the 34th edition of the festival.
