A child learning to fly while being separated from the life he knows is at the heart of Oksana Koklonska's Up in the Air. Set against the ongoing war in Ukraine, the documentary follows nine-year-old Sasha, whose training as an aerial acrobat continues after he is forced to leave Kharkiv with his circus teacher, Svitlana, and other young performers. Now living in Budapest, he must adjust to an unfamiliar environment while trying to maintain the discipline and ambition that once shaped his everyday life. But the film is less interested in presenting a story of perseverance than in observing what happens when the demands of growing up become entangled with circumstances no child should have to face.
Much of the film's strength comes from the relationship between Sasha and Svitlana. She is a demanding teacher, determined to bring out the best in her students, while Sasha increasingly struggles with her expectations. Their relationship gradually changes, revealing a tension that goes beyond the usual difficulties between a teacher and a pupil. During a visit to his parents, Sasha finally speaks about his dissatisfaction with Svitlana. It is a revealing moment, particularly because the film has spent considerable time observing his otherwise quiet attempts to navigate the situation. His talent and dedication are evident, but so is his need to be heard. Koklonska understands that these two sides of childhood can exist together.
The circus provides an interesting setting for this story. Aerial performance demands balance, concentration and complete control of the body. Sasha spends his days learning to master movements that leave him suspended above the ground, yet he has little control over the circumstances shaping his life. This contrast gives the title an additional meaning without requiring the film to explain it. His eventual success at an international competition brings genuine satisfaction, but the applause cannot resolve the personal uncertainties that remain.
Koklonska's observational approach is one of the documentary's most effective qualities. Rather than relying on familiar images of war to communicate its consequences, she finds them in interrupted family connections, unfamiliar surroundings and the changing dynamics within the circus community. The project itself had been in development before its presentation at IDFA Project Space in 2024, when the difficulties faced by the circus studio and its search for a permanent home were already part of its story. The invasion subsequently gave those struggles an entirely different urgency. This background makes the circus more than a setting; it becomes a fragile space of belonging that the children are trying to preserve.
There are moments when the film could have looked further beyond Sasha and Svitlana, particularly towards the wider experiences of displacement. Nevertheless, its restraint feels honest rather than calculated. Sasha is never reduced to an emblem of wartime suffering or Ukrainian resilience. He remains a child with his own frustrations, ambitions and contradictions.
At a time when war is so often discussed through political statements, statistics and images of destruction, Up in the Air brings attention back to the people whose lives continue to be shaped by it. It does not need to make grand declarations to establish its position. By giving a young boy the space to be seen and heard, Koklonska makes a quietly persuasive case for documentary cinema and its ability to stand against the indifference that allows human suffering to become ordinary.
