The Barbican Centre and The New Social are delighted to present the next screening as part of New East Cinema, a programme of contemporary film from the New East in collaboration with Calvert 22 Foundation.
Join us for the UK premiere of this heartfelt documentary about the kids of war-torn eastern Ukraine.
School Number 3
Ukraine / Germany, 2016, dir. Yelizaveta Smith, Georg Genoux, 116 min.
Speaking directly to the camera, teenagers from a school in Ukraine’s Donbass region share their innermost hopes, fears, desires and memories in this heartfelt documentary.
While the war between Russia and Ukraine is never mentioned, it forms an unspoken epicentre around which individual stories coalesce.
Co-directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Yelizaveta Smith and German theatre director Georg Genoux, School Number 3 developed in parallel with a live theatre performance, which was also created with students from the school. The pared down monologues brim with sincerity and emotion as we listen to a generation whose lives have been directly affected by the war, but who we are not accustomed to hearing from in the global media, tell their stories.
By collecting these individual, subjective narratives and providing them with a voice, Smith and Genoux challenge the abounding stereotypes – specifically of eastern Ukraine – that cling to this ongoing conflict and give us an opportunity to witness the country’s crisis anew.
School Number 3 is the winner of the Grand Prix for Best Film in 2017 Berlinale’s Generation 14plus.
Read more about the film in The Calvert Journal here.
About New East Cinema
New East Cinema is a bi-monthly film series curated by The New Social, presented by Calvert 22 in collaboration with the Barbican Centre, which looks across eastern Europe, the Balkans, Russia and Central Asia to uncover the most thought-provoking, daring and vibrant cinema coming from today’s “New East”.
