Time to the Target (Chas pidlotu)

Vitaly Mansky

This film, unlike typical reports on Ukraine, reveals the war’s impact far from the front, where daily life is deeply distorted by constant danger. For a year and a half, film director Vitaly Mansky has been documenting life in his hometown of Lviv, where people’s daily existence. The story follows a military brass band, whose musicians carry personal grief reflected in frequent funerals. Alongside them are the military cemetery and its elderly gravediggers, who dig up to ten graves daily for young soldiers. As seasons pass, familiar places and lives unfold, all marked by loss and the awareness of ever-present danger.

Latvia, Czech Republic, Ukraine 2025, '179

DIRECTOR: Vitaly Mansky

CAMERA: Roman Petrusyak

MONTAGE: Matvey Troshinkin

PRODUCERS: Natalia Manskaia

PRODUCTION: Vertov

FESTIVALS & AWARDS:

Berlinale
IDFA
Ji.hlava
Tallinn Black Nights FF
Yamagata IDFF
Munich IDF
Sofia IFF

Vitaly Mansky

Vitaly Manskiy was born in 1963 in Lviv, Ukraine (at that time,
the Ukrainian SSR). He graduated from VGIK (the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography) in 1989 and has become one of the most prominent contemporary documentary filmmakers and producers.

He has directed more than 30 films that have been screened at nearly every major festival worldwide and has received over 100 international awards. In 2007, he founded and became the president of the International Festival of Creative Documentary Films Artdocfest in Russia. Its operation was suspended in 2022 due to the prevailing censorship and the invasion of Ukraine. He is currently being persecuted by Russian authorities for expressing his civic stance. In 2020, he founded and became the president of the International Documentary Film Festival Artdocfest/Riga in Latvia, having emigrated from Russia in 2014. Member of the American Film Academy (Oscar).