Open-air screening
„They say that when you get goosebumps, your soul is touching your body.“
The penultimate school year for Masha, Yana, and Senia. While green plants run wild in the classroom and the biology curriculum—the physical characteristics of stress—forms a soundscape beneath the narrative, the students struggle with themselves and each other. The quiet center of Kateryna Gornostai’s feature film debut is 16-year-old Masha—introverted, sensitive, and in love with the aloof classmate Sasha, who challenges her with his passive behavior. The film avoids crude narratives just as much as overly simple psychology. When Masha dances alone in her room at night, high above the city, somewhere in Ukraine, nothing about it feels staged. Rather, it is an invitation to the moment, to true feeling. And to pain.
Followed by a film discussion