Volcano
Cult Comedies: six films on the absurdity of modern life
•
1h 46m
Directed by Roman Bondarchuk • 2018 • Ukraine
Lukas, a translator for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), is transporting some foreign colleagues across the southern Ukrainian steppe, when he becomes stranded in a ramshackle small town. Can he trust the seemingly deranged locals, and will he make it out to tell the tale? Roman Bondarchuk’s absurdist, deadpan comedy of isolation and integration borrows from the likes of Wake in Fright, Deliverance, and Sergei Loznita’s recent war farce Donbass. But with his roving, cinéma vérité-style camera, his eye for striking compositions, and his ingenious casting of local non-professionals, Bondarchuk’s vision of Ukraine’s militarised hinterlands is entirely his own.
VOLCANO • ВУЛКАН
Directed by Roman Bondarchuk
Written by Daria Averchenko, Roman Bondarchuk and Alla Tyutyunnyk
Cinematography by Vadym Ilkov
Music by Anton Baibakov
Starring: Victor Zhdanov, Serhiy Stepansky, Khrystyna Deilyk
In Ukrainian and English with English subtitles
Up Next in Cult Comedies: six films on the absurdity of modern life
-
Yellow Cat
Directed by Adilkhan Yerzhanov • 2020 • Kazakhstan
A movie-obsessed ex-con and his sultry female companion are lovers on the lam in Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s droll and touching crime caper. Kermek (Azamat Nigmanov) returns from the joint to his native Kazakh village with a dream: to build a cinema on...
-
It’s Not My Film
Directed by Maria Zbąska • 2024 • Poland
Maria Zbąska’s debut film is a charmingly cynical romantic comedy about rediscovering love in the darkest (and coldest) of places. Wanda (Zofia Chabiera) and Janek (Marcin Sztabiński) have reached an impasse in their marriage. He proposes a radical soluti...
-
Comrade Policeman
Directed by Assel Aushakimova • 2021 • Kazakhstan
Assel Aushakimova (Welcome to the USA) shows why she is one of the most acute observers of contemporary Kazakh society with this droll satirical short. When a local reporter from state television is sent to capture a PR stunt from the Ka...
