Growing old isn’t a challenge, but growing up certainly is, which is perhaps the most succinct way to describe Stop-Zemlia (Ukrainian: Стоп-Земля), a powerful social drama written and directed by Kateryna Gornostai (in her feature-length directorial debut), who tells the story of a close-knit group of high school students in working-class Ukraine, following them as they navigate the seemingly hostile waters of their final teenage years. A sympathetic, heartbreaking and motivational film about life, Stop-Zemlia is an exceptionally special story of a group of individuals desperately holding onto the last vestiges of their youth, embracing the careless freedom offered by youth, all the while being forced to look forward to the future, which they know will certainly strip them of the joyful follies of youth, an inevitable event that every young person believes they can delay as long as they remain children at heart. This film arrives to remind us that this is certainly not the case, and that holding off on the important process of growing up not only stunts us emotionally, but causes a kind of arrested development from reality that can be quite harmful to those who aren’t quite as in touch with their own identities as perhaps previous generations were. Stop-Zemlia is a powerful film positively brimming with a kind of off-kilter energy that allows the director to plumb for both deep emotional content and an abundance of moments of levity, which work together to create this vivid and profoundly striking portrait of the lives modern teenagers often face in their everyday lives, the various trials and tribulations that make their journeys to adulthood all the more challenging, but also being a cause for immense celebration.

Stop-Zemlia is a film that feels like it is plucked directly from reality – how else can we explain how it manages to be so effortlessly simple, but still convey an endless stream of deep and insightful thought to our world? The film functions as a tapestry of working-class existence – it doesn’t have a single coherent story, working as more of a series of moments in the lives of its main characters, and how they intersect in various ways, particularly when it comes to the subject of forming their identities and kindling romances that simmer due to their close proximity. Describing Stop-Zemlia as a “slice of life” drama seems both appropriate and underwhelming, since there is so much more to this story than just an objective portrayal of the lives of these characters. Its a multi-layered, neon-soaked odyssey into the inner machinations of the adolescent angst felt by those who seem to be entirely lost for direction, their lives a perpetual series of difficult moments that are only made more challenging by the feeling of entrapment that surrounds them at every turn, as part of the conservative society in which they were raised, and from which they are desperately trying to escape. Gornostai has many fascinating ideas on the various directions in which she hopes to take these characters, and throughout this film, she is constantly prodding at the concept of a status quo, the ridiculous set of rules that define the direction in which every useful citizen must venture in order to become a part of acceptable society. Using a variety of fascinating ideas that are carefully woven together to create this film, Gornostai manages to say more about growing up in the working-class locales of contemporary Ukraine than many recent films, most of which meditate on more political or social themes of the whole country, not realizing that there is an abundance of potential in looking at a small but pivotal sample of the population.

This leads to the central theme of the film, namely the fact that it is almost a universal phenomenon for everyone to believe that they know everything in their teenage years, a notable time for the sudden urge to always hold the superior opinion – a healthy-minded individual will be able to separate reality from conjecture. However, when it comes to understanding the reasons behind making Stop-Zemlia, one has to wonder how deeply the director was aiming to tell a story about fragmented identities. While they may genuinely think they know the best, these characters are fragile and uncomfortable in the most ordinary situations when it comes to defining themselves under a particular identity. These characters define the concept of fluidity – scenes of passionate embraces by members of the same sex are given the same treatment as those who don’t match the supposed status quo. Characters frequently mention their sexual preferences, which is openly embraced by their older generation with whom they come into contact (or at least most of them). A film coming from a country not always particularly open to supposedly “deviant” identities instantly situates Stop-Zemlia as a subversive work, and the plot centring not only on the outright fluidity of gender and sexuality, but amongst the younger generation, who are often viewed as being impressionable and innocent, but actually are the reason identity politics has become such a widespread area of contemporary discourse. The film navigates these conversations with nuance and dedication, continuously drawing back to the deeper message at the heart of the story, which focuses on a group of people who realize that it is perfectly acceptable to not define yourself, especially at an age when everyone is still figuring out who they are in the first place.

Stop-Zemlia combines all these elements and becomes less of a film propelled by a specific story, and more a deep observation of everyday life. The very traditional components are used to supplement (rather than shape) the story, with the cast of newcomers being far more effective in conveying the message of the film than professionals (in particular, the characters play by Maria Fedorchenko, Oleksandr Ivanov and Arsenii Markov are amongst the most compelling of the year, the actors simply being beyond endearing, magnetic in both their effortless charisma and ability to make us invest in the lives of these ordinary people that we’d not pay much attention to outside of the context of this film), and the more simple, unfurnished style, complemented by a few well-placed flourishes, makes Stop-Zemlia quite an enduring piece of contemporary European filmmaking. Gornostai seems to be fashioning herself less as a filmmaker with a specific vision for her narratives, and more a passive observer – while this film is very much a fictional tale, there’s a boundary between fact and fiction that the director is constantly crossing, almost as if she is requesting her actors play these roles in a way that is authentic to their own experience. It’s one of the merits of having high school students play roles intended for their age group – not only does it avoid unnecessary ridicule, but it allows the film to be as up-to-date with contemporary sensibilities as it could possibly be, each actor bringing their own perspective to the proceedings that may work well alongside the view projected by the director, but whose own detachment from the specific age-group depicted here being an understandable hindrance, but one that is easily resolved by placing the crux of the story in the hands of her actors, who bring their own wealth of experience to the film, especially in the discussions relating to identity, a crucial aspect of the story that needed a sense of authenticity to be effective.

Throughout the duration of Stop-Zemlia, the director is aiming to make a film that offers an objective glimpse into the lives of complex characters who are drawn directly from reality. It’s not always the most clear in terms of the direction it tends to go – it oscillates between stark realist drama and vaguely surreal subversions of reality – and the balance between the two is the precise reason the film manages to be quite successful, actively pursuing a range of ideas that mean more when taken from the perspective of a generation old enough to understand the world around them, but still too young to be taken seriously. Gornostai crosses this proverbial picket-line built around the concept of age and status, determining that even the most inexperienced of individuals have valuable insights into the world, which is done through this harrowing but beautiful combination of genres and conventions, under the broader guidelines of the magical realism that the film slowly but steadily ventures towards. It’s a truly beautiful film, a work of clear brilliance and moving commentary, much of which is done through the more intangible qualities of the text, which manifest as moments of pure visual poetry, carefully curated by a director with a  perspective that is both traditional and radical, making Stop-Zemlia into an earnest glimpse into the previously invisible lives of a generation lost to both the wave of self-victimisation and the allure of the online world, all of which combines with this achingly beautiful exploration of a segment of our world that has not been given this much attention, and the people who populate it.