Shkola No 3

In the familiar surroundings of their everyday lives, they talk about things that matter to them, about experiences that move them, about first love and loss, hopes and fears. 13 adolescents from a school in Donbass which was destroyed during the war in Ukraine, and subsequently rebuilt, share themselves in front of the camera. 13 lives inhabiting an intermediary space, both emotionally and socially. The war is only mentioned peripherally, and yet it forms the gravitational centre of this puristic and insistent narrative. Though a ceasefire may prevail in the small city, it hardly registers as peace. The documentary film is an extension of the theatre project 'My Mykolaivka', which dedicated itself to the search for truth through aesthetic means. (Berlinale)