Maintaining the work of schools in Ukraine is an attempt to reclaim at least a part of everyday life that existed before the full-scale invasion (before 24 February 2022 and in some regions, even earlier, in 2014).
Without interviews, voiceovers or reconstructions, Timestamp allows the audience to glimpse how the war affects the daily life of students and teachers. The film has a patchwork structure: it explores the functioning of schools in offline and online formats in these terrible times, both at the frontline and beyond. It demonstrates how everyday life is intertwined with constant danger.
Content warning: depiction of war
CREW:
Director: Kateryna Gornostai
Producer: Producers Olha Bregman, Natalia Libet, Viktor Shevchenko. Co-producer François Le Gall, Marion Guth, Julia Rombout, Reinier Selen
Cinematographer: Oleksandr Roshchyn
Sound: Mykhailo Zakutsky, Pavlo Melnyk, Lode Woltersom, Artem Kosynskyi, Oleksii Diachenko
Production
2Brave Productions, Rinkel Film BV,
a_BAHN, Cinephage Productions
Sales:
Awards
Eurimages New Lab Outreach Award Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. Premiere: Berlin International Film Festival
Director
Kateryna Gornostai
Born in Lutsk in 1989, Kateryna Gornostai studied biology, and later journalism at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. In 2012–2013, she studied documentary filmmaking at Marina Razbezhkina and Mikhail Ugarov’s Documentary Film and Theatre School. Afterwards, she returned to Kyiv and started her career as a documentary filmmaker. In 2013, her graduation film Between Us premiered in the national competition of the Molidist Film Festival. Later, Kateryna started working with feature films and hybrid formats. Stop-Zemlia was the director’s debut feature-length narrative film which premiered in the Generation 14+ competition of the Berlin International Film Festival and was awarded a Crystal Bear by the Youth Jury. Kateryna also teaches filmmaking at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. She lives and works in Kyiv.
Selected Filmography
Timestamp (2025), Stop-Zemlia (2021), Lilac (2017), Maidan is Everywhere (2015), Away (2015) 
