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Stop-Zemlia

Play trailer 1:39 Poster for Stop-Zemlia Released Jan 21, 2022 2h 2m Drama Romance Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
94% Tomatometer 18 Reviews 73% Popcornmeter Fewer than 50 Ratings
Navigating the emotional turmoil of waiting for life to begin while hanging around with classmates - a radical, authentic, and sensitive insight into the unsettling feeling of being young and an inside perspective on Ukrainian youth.

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Stop-Zemlia

Critics Reviews

View All (18) Critics Reviews
Cath Clarke Guardian The film is so light on its feet, and feels so effortless. Rated: 4/5 Feb 20, 2023 Full Review Katie Walsh Los Angeles Times There's something rather innocent about this depiction, which isn't trying to be a scandalous or searing portrait of youth but to create an emotionally authentic representation of this hypercharged and sensitive age. Jan 21, 2022 Full Review Elizabeth Weitzman TheWrap Thoughtful interstitial interviews with several of the teens feel fully real, and add depth. It helps, too, that the young actors are so comfortable in their roles, perhaps partly as the result of an immersive, months-long preparation process. Jan 19, 2022 Full Review Calum Cooper Flick Feast It may have a meandering feel to it, but its genuine portrayal of teenage angst and sympathetic approach to it more than makes up for this. Rated: 3/5 Jul 15, 2024 Full Review Whang Yee Ling The Straits Times (Singapore) Ukrainian cinema is often overlooked despite its presence at international festivals. This coming-of-age drama surely deserves the widest audience. Rated: 4/5 Jul 27, 2022 Full Review Ricardo Gallegos La Estatuilla A down-to-earth coming-of-age in which, with impressive confidence and a brilliant use of non-fiction, Kateryna Gornostai captures the universality of teenage life. Apr 8, 2022 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (4) audience reviews
Audience Member Best film about teenagers I've ever seen Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review jason m The more movies I see, the more I'm drawn to those that put character before plot. This movie has the wisdom to understand that the inner lives of its teen characters are far more fascinating than any dumb, recycled plot it could have chosen to bore us with. Though it's about Ukrainian high school seniors, anyone who's ever been a teen will find something of a kindred recognition in these characters. What "Stop-Zemlia" does best is observe how they feel about themselves & how they relate to each other. That's probably the hardest kind of writing to commit to film: to really listen to characters instead of burdening them with useless plot details. My only quibble with the film are the faux-documentary parts that provide explanations that I would rather intuit by just watching the characters go about their lives. Apart from those sequences though, I was quietly immersed in this story and wished it could be a mini-series so it could give all of them more time to develop further. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member An Ukrainian film about the fragile and wonderful world of teenagers, about the amalgam of emotions and sensibilities that make them living in a way that adults gradually forget, becoming poorer and poorer in poetry of self-discovery. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/10/23 Full Review Audience Member The directorial debut of Kateryna Gornostai, this film finds an introverted high schooler named Masha, who is only happy when she's hanging out with two other ousiders, Yana and Senia. Yet how will young love change everything? After all, Masha is in love with Sasha, Yana is in love with Senia and Senia is in love with Masha. Even though this takes place a world away — much less a world in danger of Russian troops coming into its borders and possible igniting World War III, which is hinted at in this movie when Senia attends a class explaining how to load an AK-47 — the lives of these teens don't seem all that different from our country. And it reminds me — I'm glad that I am not growing up today with the pressures of identity, social media and nonstop harassment. It all seems so confining and full of anxiety even in comparison to my teen years in the 80s. Gornostai started in documentaries and this movie uses that style throughout. It's a really earnest and nuanced take on the perils of growing up. But yeah, I'm totally good with never being a teenager ever again. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Stop-Zemlia

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Movie Info

Synopsis Navigating the emotional turmoil of waiting for life to begin while hanging around with classmates - a radical, authentic, and sensitive insight into the unsettling feeling of being young and an inside perspective on Ukrainian youth.
Director
Kateryna Gornostai
Producer
Olga Beskhmelnitsyna, Viktoria Khomenko, Natalia Libet, Vitaliy Sheremetiev
Screenwriter
Kateryna Gornostai
Distributor
Altered Innocence
Production Co
ESSE Production House, Ukrainian State Film Agency, Ukrainian Cultural Foundation
Genre
Drama, Romance
Original Language
Ukrainian
Release Date (Theaters)
Jan 21, 2022, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Jan 21, 2022
Runtime
2h 2m
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