Sceneggiatura / Screenplay: Yulia Lokshina. Fotografia / Photography: Nina Wesemann. Montaggio / Editing: Yulia Lokshina, Maya Klar. Suono / Sound: Jakob Gross, Alejandro Weyler. Animazione / Animation: Felix Klee. Produzione / Produced by: Oficina de Objetos Perdidos.
Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, a young Russian teacher speaks out against the war. She is secretly recorded and denounced by a pupil. She flees to Berlin, where a German school class re-enacts her case and tries to understand how this betrayal came about. Balancing through archival material, found footage, 3D animations and a documentary reenactment, the film approaches the institution of school as a vehicle for the expansion of the Russian state, both militarily on the outside and ideologically on the inside. The war is given a different name, the concepts get blurred, teachers and pupils start observing each other. Here and there, secret audio recordings of conversations in class emerge online. The film follows these events to reflect on processes of political overpowering and the conditions of resistance.
Yulia Lokshina
Born in 1986 in Moscow, Yulia Lokshina moved to Germany in 1999 and now lives and works between Berlin and Munich, where she studied documentary film directing at the Academy for Television and Film. Over the years, her films and video works have been screened and awarded at numerous national and international festivals and art venues. Active Vocabulary premiered at the latest edition of DOK Leipzig, where it won the award for Best Film in the German Documentary Competition.
filmografia scelta / selected filmography 2016 Tage der Jugend (Days of Youth) cm / sf doc. 2019 Subjective Hill cm / sf doc. diretto con / directed with Angela Stiegler 2020 Regeln am Band, bei hoher Geschwindigkeit (Rules of the Assembly Line at High Speed) doc.; Premi / Awards: Premio dell’Associazione critici cinematografici tedeschi / German Film Critics Association Award 2025 Active Vocabulary doc.; Premi / Awards: DOK Leipzig – Miglior film del concorso dei documentari tedeschi / Best Film in the German Documentary Competition
