Screening: Stop-Zemlia (2021), Ukraine New Cinema, Q&A w/ Director

Ukraine New Cinema Series

Directed by Kateryna Gornostai

Ukraine | 2021 | 122 min | Ukrainian with English subtitles

Winner of the Crystal Bear for Best Feature Film at the Berlin International Film Festival (Generation 14plus), Stop-Zemlia is a radical, tender, and deeply honest coming-of-age portrait of Ukrainian youth on the threshold between adolescence and adulthood. Set in Kyiv, the film follows a group of high-school seniors as they navigate friendship, first love, emotional vulnerability, and the uncertainty of life after graduation. Blending documentary-style observation with carefully staged intimacy, Gornostai works with a cast of non-professional actors to create one of the most authentic cinematic depictions of adolescence in recent years. The result is a film that resists easy narrative resolution, instead offering a quiet yet powerful meditation on identity, belonging, and becoming.

In Ukraine, Stop-Zemlia has received wide critical acclaim and national recognition, including the Taras Shevchenko National Prize (2022). Internationally, the film has garnered over 20 awards and 20 nominations, establishing Gornostai as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary Ukrainian cinema.

This screening is part of the Ukraine New Cinema Series, which brings contemporary Ukrainian filmmakers and films to Yale to foster critical conversations about culture, identity, and artistic expression in a time of profound social and political transformation.

Co-sponsored by:
Yale Ukrainian Program · Yale Ukraine House · Slavic Department · The Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund · Razom for Ukraine · Yale MacMillan Center Program in Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies · European Studies Council · Film & Media Studies · Yale Film Society

Free admission | No registration required