Timestamp
Despite the war, school life continues in Ukraine, with students and teachers striving to continue learning even under constant threat.
Keeping schools open in Ukraine is an attempt to recreate at least some of the normal life they had before the war — until February 24, 2022 (and in some regions even earlier, in 2014). Without interviews, narration and reenactments, TIMESTAMP provides an insight into how the war is affecting the daily lives of students and teachers. The film has a mosaic-like structure: it explores how a school functions in-person and online in these terrible times, both on and off the frontline, how day-to-day life is intertwined with constant danger.
2024 Marché du Film – Festival de Cannes | Festival de Cannes
European Solidarity Fund Winner
CPH : DOX Forum 2024
Eurimages New Lab Award: Outreach And Distribution
Osvitoria | Film Fund Luxembourg | European Solidarity Fund for Ukrainian Films | Eurimages New Lab Awards | Region Sud | The Dutch Foundation for Literature | International Media Support | Suspilne Ukraine via the Mediafit Programme | The Institute for Human Sciences: Documenting Ukraine | Ukrainian Institute
In field medicine, a timestamp is part of every tourniquet kit: it’s crucial to mark the time of applying a hemostatic de- vice to prevent the loss of blood-starved tissue. Nowadays, every schoolchild, unfortunately, knows what a tourniquet is and how to use it, as it is now part of school education in Ukraine. But this is not the main theme of the film.
We focused on ordinary and simple school experiences, like tears during the first bell ceremony, a senior student playing the role of Santa Claus, or colorful ribbons in the hands of graduates. All of this, of course, is now imbued with the context of war: students often study in shelters during air raid alerts, the principal shows the destroyed and sealed-off part of the school while lessons continue in another wing, and at an online graduation, a bell rings out that was salvaged from Russian-occupied Bakhmut.
The war has deeply penetrated this daily life, but we have no choice but to continue living and learning. And even to find joy in the everyday, because, as one of our heroines tells her students:
— And what is life? Come on, read it, she asks a little boy.
— Beautiful, young… he reads.
— And what is the most precious thing for each of us? the teacher asks the class. — Life! the students reply in unison.
— Exactly! We must cherish it.
KATERYNA GORNOSTAI, director
Creating this film, we understood that we were appealing to universal values. Schools and education are something everyone in the world can relate to. And Kateryna has an unmatched ability to bring this to life on screen with subtlety and depth. The war has profoundly altered the lives of those in Ukrainian education, and we believe we captured this marker of time, this timestamp.
OLHA BREGMAN & NATALIA LIBET, co-founders of 2BRAVE PRODUCTIONS and producers of the film
KATERYNA GORNOSTAI
was born in Lutsk in 1989. She graduated with a degree in biology and later studied journalism at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. In 2012–2013, Kateryna studied documentary filmmaking at Marina Razbezhkina’s School of Documentary Films and Theater. She returned to Kyiv during the Revolution of Dignity to film the events. Later, she started exploring narrative and hybrid forms of filmmaking. STOP-ZEMLIA, director’s narrative feature debut, premiered in the Generation 14plus 2021 at the 71st Berlin International Film Festival and received the Crystal Bear Award from the Youth Jury. She lives and works in Kyiv, and teaches film directing.
Filmography /selected/
2021 Stop-Zemlia (122’) fiction
Berlinale Generation 14Plus – Crystal Bear of the Youth Jury Generation 14+; Five Lakes FF, Germany – Main Prize Award; Odesa IFF, Ukraine – Grand Prix Award, Best Ukrainian Feature Film Award, and Best Acting Work Award; IFF Molodist, Ukraine – Winners of the National Competition; also among the festivals where the film was shown – Karlovy Vary IFF, Czech Republic; Thessaloniki IFF, Greece; Edinburgh IFF, UK; Trieste Film Festival, Italy and others
2017 Lilac (30’) fiction
FIPRESCI Award and Jury Prize at OIFF 2017, Ukraine.
2015 Maidan is Everywhere (36’) documentary
Andriy Matrosov Award from the IHRFF DOCUDAYS UA 2015, Ukraine
2015 Away (11’) fiction
Best Film award at the National Competition Molodist IFF 2015, Ukraine; Best Ukrainian Film at the Wiz-Art Film Festival 2015, Ukraine; Best Actors at the OIFF 2015, Ukraine.