As the 2014 war in Eastern Ukraine was wreaking havoc, a group of social workers were toiling away in a temporary accommodation centre near the front. They wanted to create a safe space for children in the maximum nine months they could spend there and to then offer them the best future possible – sometimes this would be a family and other times an orphanage. Through the destinies of three children who struggle against the uncertainty of the future, the film manages to tell the story of an entire generation, that of children who lose their parents “to war or to alcohol” and become adults much too early. We thus have an unprecedented and intimate perspective on a subject everyone thinks they know (the war in Ukraine and its consequences) and on a reality everyone thinks they understand (the combination of alcohol, violence, and poverty in Eastern countries.) There is despair in this reality – every child who leaves the centre is immediately replaced by another, with an almost identical story –, but there is also hope and raw joy, in the children’s play or in the reunion with a grandmother who assumes the role of both mother and father. (Sorana Stănescu)