Volcano
Cult Comedies: six films on the absurdity of modern life
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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
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