*This screening has the support of APAV (Portuguese Association for Victim Support). After the film there will be a Talk: Educate to Exist, and Resist
A film that aims to remind the world that the war continues in Ukraine and that it’s the most vulnerable who are suffering the most. The film avoids any use of interviews, voice-over, or other documentary techniques, to simply show the impact of the war on this country, offering the day-to-day life of schools in the Kiev region, with all the difficulties and small victories that this entails.
TIMESTAMP, a film by Kateryna Gornostai, offers an unvarnished look at how education serves as a cornerstone of resistance in Ukraine during wartime. In this documentary, which had its world premiere in the Official Competition at the latest Berlin Film Festival, interviews and reenactments are deliberately avoided. Gornostai films the everyday life of schools with a discreet and natural approach.
Through intimate yet powerful scenes, such as graduation ceremonies or classes held in shelters during bomb alerts, TIMESTAMP further explores the power of education as an anchor of the kind of normalcy that the population seeks, even if fleeting and under the constant threat that has loomed since the Russian invasion on February 24th 2022. Despite the devastating effects of the war, school life continues, with teachers and students preserving hope and dignity amidst the physical and emotional destruction surrounding them.
Without explicitly showing the bloodshell, TIMESTAMP offers a profund reflection on the courage of a people fighting to preserve their culture and identity, and the role of education in wartime as a symbol of hope for the future. Also, this work invites us to reflect on the reality of children in war zones and the universality of the desire to continue learning to (re)build a world that will never be the same.
(Alexandra Ferraz)
