UNDER THE VOLCANO
POLAND

Writers: Damian Kocur and Marta Konarzewska
Cast: Roman Lutskyi, Anastasiia Karpienko, Sofia Berezovska, Fedir Pugachov
Genre: Family drama, War, Psychological
105 minutes: Ukrainian, Spanish, English, Russian, German, Wolof with English subtitles (Spanish and German dialogues intentionally left untranslated) – 2024
World Premiere – Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2024 | Winner – Best Director, Gdynia Film Festival | Official Selection – Sarajevo Film Festival 2024 | Nominee – Best European Film, Sevilla European Film Festival
On the final day of a family holiday in Tenerife, a Ukrainian father, his new wife, and two children are jolted from their sunlit bubble by the devastating news that Russia has invaded their homeland. As flights are grounded and uncertainty sets in, Roman—a father and husband caught between the past and present—must navigate the emotional fault lines of a newly blended family in exile.
Tensions simmer between his teenage daughter Sofia, young son Fedir, and his second wife Nastya. What begins as a frustrating disruption soon transforms into a reckoning with belonging, identity, and helplessness, as the family faces an unfolding war from a paradise they can no longer enjoy.
Following his acclaimed debut Bread and Salt (Winner – Venice Orizzonti Special Jury Prize), Damian Kocur returns with a deeply personal and piercing portrait of a family in psychological freefall. With naturalistic performances and immersive direction, Under the Volcano explores the private costs of public crises—the fractures that form not in armies, but in hotel rooms, breakfast tables, and unspoken moments of grief.
A resonant, quietly powerful film about displacement, duty, and the invisible weight of trauma.
“A Ukrainian family’s vacation turns into wartime exile in this simmering drama.”
— Variety Magazine
“Even as a tense exploration of difficult family relationships, in the manner of Aftersun, this would be gripping, but Kocur continually nudges at the bigger picture.”
— Screen Daily
“It’s gently affecting and thoughtfully performed…it captures the strange dissonance of watching your homeland fall apart from behind a curtain of sunshine.”
— Letterboxed