Film Archive

Volcano

East of the West - Competition 2018 / Vulkan / Ukraine, Germany 2018

One day Lukas, employed as an interpreter for an OSCE mission, becomes lost in the middle of the steppe in southern Ukraine. His journey towards self-recognition and happiness will be flanked by a series of strange encounters and bizarre situations… Roman Bondarchuk’s novel feature debut is a tragicomedy whose striking visuals aid him in fleshing out the colorful world of southern Ukraine, a place which still bears unmistakable traces of the distant and not-too-distant past.

Synopsis

One day Lukas, employed as an interpreter for an OSCE mission, becomes lost in the middle of the steppe in southern Ukraine. As fate would have it, he ends up in a sleepy little town where he finds shelter with an idiosyncratic local named Vova and his daughter Marushka. At this point Lukas doesn’t much know which direction his life should take. His next journey towards self-recognition and happiness will be flanked by a series of strange encounters and bizarre situations… As with his internationally successful documentary Ukrainian Sheriffs, Roman Bondarchuk chose a tragicomic tone for his novel debut in features, and with the help of striking visuals, he vividly portrays the colorful world of southern Ukraine, which still bears unmistakable traces of the distant and not-too-distant past.

Lenka Tyrpáková

About the film

106 min / Color, DCP
World premiere
Director Roman Bondarchuk / Screenplay Alla Tyutyunnik, Roman Bondarchuk, Darya Averchenko / Dir. of Photography Vadim Ilkov / Music Anton Baibakov / Editor Mykola Bazarkin, Heike Parplies / Producer Olena Yershova / Production Tato Film / Coproduction Elemag Pictures GmbH / Cast Serhiy Stepansky, Viktor Zhdanov, Khrystyna Deilyk / Sales Pluto Film

About the director

Roman Bondarchuk (b. 1982, Kherson, Ukraine). Filmography: Commemoration Day (Radunytsya, 2007, short), Mms (2009, short), Euromaidan. Rough Cut (Yevromaidan. Chornovyi montazh, 2014, doc.), Dixieland (2015, doc.), Ukrainian Sheriffs (Ukrainski sherifi, 2015, doc.), Volcano (Vulkan, 2018)