On the Berlin Movie Competition on February 20, the movie was proven Ukrainian Katerina Ekhinostai “Time of Time” – a documentary concerning the lifetime of Ukrainian colleges in the course of the struggle. His heroes are college students and academics from throughout Ukraine: some college has been destroyed by bombing, others prepare drones, others examine and even obtain diplomas remotely. Kinocritic Anton Dolin talks about this sturdy and strange movie concerning the private formation in excessive circumstances, which a complete nation is experiencing with the heroes. The writer of the portray Katerina Ermine and her companion, Montary Nikon Romanchenko, two days earlier than the premiere metal mother and father.
The title “Time of Time” could be learn metaphorically, however usually “vapor hour” (in Ukrainian), or TimeStamp (in English)-the time period from area medication: a word on the time of making use of a tourniquet, in order to not exceed its secure keep on the wounded limb . That is taught to this in one of many classes proven within the movie by Katerina Ermine. Pupils of most colleges all over the world, like adults, can afford to not know this. Quite a few kids and adolescents who’ve develop into the heroes of the “time of time” – the listing of actors within the closing seems spectacular – raised by struggle. They know numerous what it’s not possible for us to even guess. Nonetheless, the image does every little thing potential in order that the viewer can get nearer to the distinctive expertise of his heroes.
Every Ukrainian documentary concerning the present struggle, no matter creative deserves, turns into a useful doc of the period. The work of the ermine nonetheless stands out in opposition to the final background with particular delicacy, severity, consideration to particulars and compositional integrity. In whole, the second movie of the director, who as soon as studied on the workshop of Marina Razbuzhkina (the debut “Cease-Earth” in 2021 was awarded the prize of the parallel contest of Berlinale Era), for the primary time since 1997, introduced Ukraine within the competitors of the competition (then it was Kira Muratova and her “” Three tales “). And he was in time and to the place not solely as a result of the present initiatives of Donald Trump dramatically influenced forecasts concerning the timing and types of completion of the present struggle.
He grew to become a banality – however didn’t lose relevance – the thesis that right now in Ukraine the long run is defended from the previous. The entrance of this international confrontation expands on daily basis, capturing new territories, though not actually. In 2025, Berlinale initiated the “Prospects” contest, solely for the director of the Division, and all of it turned out to be concerning the battle of the brand new with the outdated, kids with the fathers. The authors from Mexico, Slovenia, States, Egypt, Germany, Hungary, France, with out saying a phrase, inform the tales of youngsters who getting into into clearly traumatic grownup life.
“Time of Time” is the perfect native image on the declared subject. The panoramicity and mosaic of the construction, spreading the scene all through Ukraine, doesn’t contradict the sensation of chamber, intimacy, acquainted within the “stop-earth”. A movie is born about private formation in excessive circumstances, which a complete nation is experiencing with the heroes.
There isn’t any writer’s vote or textual content within the “Time Feed”, aside from the credit with the names of the cities and the villages, accompanied by the gap from the entrance line. There isn’t any interview with characters – academics and college students of 1 and a half dozen colleges. The digicam of Oleksandra Roshchin (he additionally shot a “stop-earth”) stays invisible-in addition to a tiny episode initially of the movie, when the kids wave and smile on the operator (which implies the viewer). The one formally organizing factor is an excellent delicate, as if shocked music by Kyiv composer Alexei Shmurak, carried out by a chapel with three feminine voices. She knocks down a violent temper stuffed with the movie Melodies, from ABBA to trendy Ukrainian songs.
The Ermine explores the time in his two types: the cyclicality of the college yr, adjusted to the rhythms of rising up kids and adolescents, and the everlasting variability of the struggle, the monstrous sappress proposed by her. Even a minute of silence is measured by a ticking second arrow. The lesson time is interrupted by siren air anxiousness. The routine academic cycle is violated by the struggle – how the rocket destroys the college constructing, killing folks (a number of such instances are proven within the movie). The counterpoint of the standard and surprising, unequivocal actualizes the sensation of the long run, leads it outdoors the stamp. We’ve got hardened since Soviet occasions that “kids are our future”, however what about the truth that the plans of tomorrow’s graduates are diminished to which brigade they’ll go to struggle and what specialty will select – tanker, signalman or sniper?
The struggle penetrated into every cell, grew to become a part of DNA even the place nothing reminds of this immediately, as in Bucha: the Ermine begins his movie within the suburbs of Kyiv, the title of which grew to become a family title. In Cherkasy, highschool college students prepare to launch a drone. In Nikolaev, within the lesson, associations are listed with the phrase “security” (“mates”, “world”, “ZSU”) and focus on the contents of the “alarming backpack”. Within the underground artwork studio of Kharkov, the unconscious is interpreted by way of portray. In Borodyanka, they can’t construct a brand new college constructing in any approach – the outdated was destroyed throughout bombing. In a white woman, a lady cries, seeing a portrait of her father within the classroom within the classroom. In Zarechny, adolescents go to the ruins of a bombed college, making an attempt to guess the place the cupboard is, and the place is the trainer’s. In romnes, the deceased director is buried on the ruins of one other college …
On-line classes, which have develop into the norm in Covid, one other navy necessity. The trainer in Borodyanka leads arithmetic on the board connected to the outer wall of the home, in entrance of the pc: college students ship her greetings from distant Netherlands. One other is engaged in schoolchildren from his bed room, whereas her son has his personal lesson within the subsequent room. Within the Bakhmut, destroyed by the struggle, the mom and a chic daughter, who simply – identical to this, on the laptop – graduated from college and acquired a diploma. Outlet.
The bizarre “Tape of Time” just isn’t instantly realized. Often, whether or not the Recreation movies about rising up include the thought of inside progress, the transformation of characters by way of new expertise and testing. The final three years of navy operations, disasters and non -alosning ache, explains the participant of the present struggle that got here to speak with the kids, doesn’t give any types of constructive expertise. This particular “time of time” merely doesn’t include a possible for growth. You may see the braveness of kids and academics within the ongoing college lifetime of current -day Ukraine, it’s potential – an everyday need to cling to atavistic normality, however actuality doesn’t educate anybody a lesson. Moderately, we’re coping with pure existence: life bravely opposes demise, generally gaining small victories. The winner on this case could be thought of any first -grader who answered with out hesitation to the best query, who surrendered his homework, which, in precept, got here to the lesson.
Puddy gyree falls on the viewer the bitterness of the ultimate titer: the movie is devoted to the reminiscence of the youthful brother of the director Maxim Gornosta, who died in a battle for Ukraine in 2023. The information responds with a light-weight afterless after the premiere of the premiere: two days earlier than Katerina’s proven by Katerina and her husband, the director of the “Time Entrance” Nikon Romanchenko, a son was born within the Berlin hospital.
