Plot

War makes a Ukrainian brass band from a small town play at funerals more often than weddings. Sometimes both on the same day. Now they prepare for an exam that will decide their fate. If they fail, the orchestra will be disbanded.

Amidst the lush blossoms of fruit trees and modest village huts, a lonely community center with shabby walls stands proudly in a small Ukrainian town some 170 km from Kyiv.

From a wide-open window the sound of a classical music is coming. It is as weird to hear in a place like this as punk rock somewhere in Wyoming back in 1977.

The elderly musicians of the orchestra are led by a 73-year-old man with tousled hair and a joyful look. This is the director of the Tetiyiv brass band, Vasyl Antonovych, who has dedicated his entire life to music. His small-town orchestra performs at weddings and funerals. Sometimes both on the same day.

In the war-torn country funerals happen more often than weddings.

These days the band has to get ready for an exam that will decide their fate. They have to defend the status of a folk orchestra before the commission sent to their town by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture.

If they fail to pass the exam, the orchestra will be disbanded. Such a development may become a catastrophe for the musicians who can't live without playing together. They have been doing this for decades.

The members of the brass band are unknown musicians who do not play for applause. Picking up their instruments, they happily admit that they simply cannot do otherwise. After all, music allows them to enjoy life in a way that would be impossible without it.

After a rehearsal the musicians come back to their small-town routine, which may look bizarre to an outsider. Everybody has its own story to tell. Theit fate shows an archetypal image of a Ukrainian artist in the times of war.

The contrasting emotional landscape that accompanies the orchestra's days builds up a surreal atmosphere where death and life intertwine. Attending weddings and funerals more often than any other person, the musicians look the wheel of life with calm irony and dark humor. The allegorical story of the group of charismatic musicians allows one to vividly imagine what Ukrainians of creative professions are facing in the turbulent times of our time.