"What we Ukrainians have lost in this conflict is the illusion of being able to control our lives."
Interview Kateryna Gornostai, biologist, journalist, director and author of the fiction "Jeunesse en reprie", awarded at the Berlinale in 2021, today signs "Premières classes", an edifying and sober documentary on the state of primary and secondary education in her country attacked by Russia.
Interview by Xavier Leherpeur
Ukrainian director Kateryna Gornostai during the presentation of her documentary "First Classes" at the Berlinale, February 20, 2025. CHRISTOPH SOEDER/DPA PICTURE-ALLIANCE VIA AFP
Seen from a distance, they are ordinary schoolgirls and high school students, more or less seated quietly behind their desks to listen to their teacher. Seen up close, they are budding resistance fighters, proving by their mere presence in class their belief in a peaceful future. Despite material hardship, the targeted destruction of schools by enemy forces, and the intimidation of the invader... they are all building the future of their nation. In "Première Classes," a documentary released in French theaters this Wednesday, September 10, Kateryna Gornostai, who won an award at the Berlinale in 2021 for "Jeunesse en reprieve," filmed Ukrainian students and teachers in 2023 and 2024 whose daily lives were disrupted by the large-scale invasion launched by Russia in February 2022.
This project was born from a sort of commission...Kateryna Gornostai Originally, there was a request from the Osvitoria organization, an educational NGO that wanted to make a film about the state of schooling in Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion. And to tell it primarily from the perspective of the children…
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