Time to the Target

The conductor urges the members of Lviv’s military brass band to keep rehearsing not just funeral marches, but also upbeat pieces—for when they no longer have to play only at funerals. In this historic city in western Ukraine, the trenches may be far away, but the war is not—it just makes its presence felt here with a slight delay. Initially the cemetery had 100 plots reserved for fallen soldiers, but before long the few gravediggers could no longer keep up.

With a calm pace and long, observational shots, Vitaly Mansky documents a year in the life of his birthplace. The streets, now largely populated by women and girls, are increasingly marked by symbols of national pride: flags and embroidered traditional clothing. Young men with prosthetic legs begin to appear. Desperate mothers scan boards lined with photos of the missing. And always, there is the threat of a missile strike. Meanwhile, the musicians wrestle with their emotions as yet another coffin is lowered into the earth among the rows of wooden crosses.