Skip to main content
Under the Volcano film image; adults with a child taking a group selfie

Under the Volcano

Panorama

This event has passed

One day, Roman, Nastya, and their two children are enjoying a relaxing vacation in Tenerife. The next, Russia invades their homeland, Ukraine, and the world has shifted beneath their feet. Their newfound status as refugees insidiously, inexorably heightens the tensions typical of any family holiday. The war underwrites their every interaction. While trying to distract their young son and deal with their teenage daughter’s newfound rebellious streak, Roman and Nastya’s marriage is put to the test.

Elliptical in style but unflinchingly honest, this Polish-produced film effectively conveys the Ukrainian family’s maelstrom of emotions—grief, fear, confusion, animosity, depression, self-doubt, lust for revenge, and greater sympathy for other dispossessed strangers. Director Damian Kocur wields the absurdity of being in a holiday destination when your home is under siege to tremendous effect. His brilliant narrative gambit results in a truly unique and invaluable perspective on the Ukraine crisis.

 

Supported by

Director
Cast

Sofia Berezowska, Roman Lutskyi, Anastasiia Karpienko, Fedir Pugachov

Credits
Country of Origin

Poland

Year

2024

Language

In Ukrainian, Spanish, English, Russian, German and Wolof with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+
102 min
Family Relations
Lizart Film

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Producer

Mikolaj Lizut, Agnieszka Jastrzębska

Screenwriter

Damian Kocur, Marta Konarzewska

Cinematography

Nikita Kuzmienko

Editor

Alan Zejer

Production Design

Aleksandra Markowska

Damian Kocur headshot; Under the Volcano director

Damian Kocur

Damian Kocur is a director, scriptwriter, cinematographer, and a PhD student at the Łódź Film School. His debut feature film Bread and Salt (2022) was awarded the Special Jury Prize in the Orizzonti competition at the Venice Film Festival 2022, Cairo IFF, Antalya IFF, Cottbus Film Festival, and many more. His last short film As It Was was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2023.

Filmography: Bread and Salt (2022)

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

21st Century Classics Audience Choice: Parasite

Dir. Bong Joon-ho
132 min

South Korean master filmmaker Bong Joon-ho delivers an unpredictable comic suspense thriller with his Palme d'Or and Academy Award-winning film, Parasite.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

School of Rock

Dir. Richard Linklater
108 min

With not one, but two new Richard Linklater movies at VIFF this year (Nouvelle Vague and Blue Moon), we thought it would be fun to revisit a choice cut from his rich back catalogue: the best Black and White movie ever made, School of Rock.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Boyhood

Dir. Richard Linklater
165 min

A dozen years in the making, Richard Linklater's masterpiece chronicles the evolution of a boy into a young man, from six to 18. It is the ultimate coming-of-age movie, and one of the most audacious cinematic feats of the decade.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

There Will Be Blood

Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
158 min

Paul Thomas Anderson's lacerating epic about the birth of the oil age: Daniel Day-Lewis is extraordinary as the prospector entirely consumed with his own enterprise, a Trumpian figure of naked self-assertion; Paul Dano the evangelist who may be his nemesis.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Godland

Dir. Hlynur Pálmason
143 min

In the late 19th century, a Danish Lutheran priest is dispatched to a far corner of Iceland where a devout farmer has seen fit to build a church. The physical journey is arduous. His spiritual journey, more taxing still.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Balconettes

Dir. Noémie Merlant
105 min

In this flamboyant black comedy set in Marseille during a heatwave, writer-director-star Noémie Merlant and her two besties have to cover up the unpleasant evidence of a disastrous night partying with the hunk across the way.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre