15-Minute Opening Excerpt (Full film available upon request)
Genre: Documentary Format: 2k (1.85:1) Length: 79 min Status: Completed Language: Russian Subtitles: English-German-Spanish Availability: World Premiere Shooting dates: December 2023 – January 2024 – June 2025 Locations: Yuzhno Sakhalinsk, Vladivostok, Novosibirsk, Ulan Ude, Irkutsk, Yekaterinburg and Saint Petersburg
Synopsis
Working Youth, Fucking Youth, Russian Youth… is a mosaic of a generation living in a reality they did not choose but must inhabit. Shot in the winter of 2023-24 across seven Russian cities, from East to West, the documentary follows separate stories of young people born in the early 2000s. By observing their lives, it offers a meditation on being young in uncertain times. A moment in life caught between fading illusions and a fragile tomorrow.
Director’s Statement
We were born in the ’80s and grew up witnessing a world in rapid transformation, from the fall of the Soviet Union to the rise of the internet and the emergence of a more interconnected global society. In today’s Russia, the voices of a generation born after 2000 often remain unheard, misunderstood, or silenced, both inside and outside the country. They seem largely disconnected from the events shaping the world around them, with the kind of distance that often marks youth. Through this film, we set out to meet these young people, to listen to their stories, fears, hopes, and contradictions, and to capture them in the most natural and honest way possible.
It all began as a spontaneous reaction to the overwhelming noise of the world we live in – from an intense feeling of “It is now or never, we have to do this!” – as news of the war kept mounting. More and more voices like ours, and those of many others, were being erased. We were moving between St Petersburg and Berlin in early 2022, watching propaganda grow louder and more absurd, and a question kept returning: Who are these “Russians” everyone is talking about? To find some answers, we decided to travel across the country, see it with our own eyes, and find spaces where individuals could simply speak, not only about politics, but about themselves and their future.
The idea was simple: five minutes, a few open questions, and a camera. No agenda, no scripts. Just a space for someone to be seen and heard. The interviews were filmed in very different places, from city centres to remote regions, capturing a landscape that itself reflects the diversity and tension of the people living in it.
Each conversation is a fragment. Together, they form a portrait of a generation growing up in uncertainty, of young people navigating a fractured and shifting world. Their stories are not linear or unified, and that fragmentation is intentional. It mirrors the alienation so many of us feel. Despite their differences, they share the experience of finding their way through a world where the future feels unresolved and the hope for something better remains a powerful force.
This film is not about answers. It’s about presence. About showing that behind every sweeping headline or generalised label, there are complex, contradictory human beings. This film is a meditation on young people: on their energy, vulnerability, resilience, and the stubborn hope that keeps them moving forward despite uncertainty. It is an invitation to see beyond headlines and statistics.
Was born in Krasnodar (Russia), started out in photography and journalism, and then moved to St. Petersburg to study filmmaking at the St. Petersburg State Institute of Cinema and Television (SPIKiT). Since 2015, she has been living in Berlin, where she is studying at the DFFB (German Film and Television Academy Berlin), specializing in documentary and narrative film, as well as analogue formats.
Contact
nawhnzv@gmail.com
ekaterinamostovaia@gmail.com
