Ukraine | 2023 | Documentary | 100’ | Original Version with English Subtitles
“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 organized expedition to the Himalayas gives the five Ukrainian teenagers the chance to fulfill this dream for a brief moment, before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 ends up destroying the last remnants of future perspectives.
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 recognize and celebrate the fragile beauty of life.