For nearly four years, Ukraine has resisted Russia’s brutal aggression. Far from the front lines, in Lviv, the illusion of peace proves fragile. Air raid sirens mark the seconds until missiles might strike, turning “time to the target” into a rhythm of fear and survival.

Vitaly Mansky – multi-award-winning filmmaker, a living classic of documentary cinema, and now based in Riga – returns to his hometown Lviv to observe how war seeps into everyday life in Ukraine’s most “European” city. Through changing seasons, the film follows rituals of endurance: a military brass band playing at countless funerals, elderly gravediggers preparing fresh graves daily, and citizens who live under constant threat and loss.

This is a long film, demanding patience rather than speed. Mansky’s slow, unbroken gaze reveals what quick reports cannot: the hidden drama of the rear, where tragedy and resilience coexist. “Time to the Target” is not a film to be consumed, but experienced – an invitation to surrender to its rhythm, and a reminder that today all of Europe lives under the same looming shadow of aggression.

Marianna Kaat