WE WILL NOT FADE AWAY

During their visit to the 73rd Berlin Film Festival, a group International Baccalaureate Film students were thrilled to bump into the cast and director of the documentary, My ne Zgasnemo (We Will Not Fade Away, Alisa Kovalenko, 2023). The impromptu encounter happened at a McDonald’s, where the students were able to chat with the young stars of the film that they had viewed the previous night. At the emotionally charged premiere screening at the science centre, Urania, it had received a rapturous 5-minute standing ovation from the Berlinale audience.

The documentary follows the lives of a community of teenagers living in the troubled Donbas region of Ukraine from early 2019 through to the beginning of the invasion by Russian forces in February 2022. The film highlights the difficulties faced by this generation of teenagers, who, despite challenging circumstances, manage before the war to escape briefly from reality with an expedition to the

Himalayas. For many, the dream of going to university or starting an apprenticeship is shattered when some of them have to flee their homes and seek asylum in Western Europe at the outset of the war. Other cast members – who are of similar ages to our key stage 5 students – are drafted into the Ukrainian defence forces such as the army, police, or fire service. In fact, the post-screening Q&A session included particularly tragic revelation when the young director, Alisa Kovalenko, shared that she had “lost contact” with several of the participants in the wake of the fierce fighting that followed Russia’s occupation of Ukraine. I can think of no better expression of IB’s ideal of “fostering a spirit of internationalism” in practice.

Ultimately, the Hautlieu students found both this chance encounter and the screening to be among of the most memorable moments of their trip to Berlin, with many saying that this highly moving experience will stay with them for a very long time.