UNDER THE VOLCANO
Special Features: Special Presentation | 2025 Oscar® Selection, Poland | Post-screening reception sponsored by the Embassy of Poland on Dec. 12
[POD WULKANEM]
Damian Kocur’s follow-up to his acclaimed debut BREAD AND SALT (2022) made its U.S. premiere at AFI FEST a decade after his short 21 DAYS premiered at AFI DOCS in 2014. In the Polish filmmaker’s sophomore feature, a Ukrainian family of four vacationing abroad in the Canary Islands is suddenly forced into physical and existential limbo when Russia invades Ukraine on the day before they have planned to return home. The tourists become refugees overnight, witnessing the war from afar and experiencing its turmoil indirectly. Soon tempers flare between teenaged Sofiia, her father Roman and stepmother Anastasiia, causing the threads of this patchwork family to fray. Led by strikingly authentic performances that capture coexisting feelings of guilt, dread and relief, UNDER THE VOLCANO is a compelling observation of complex family dynamics and displacement. (Note courtesy AFI FEST.)
Official Selection, 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. DIR/SCR Damian Kocur; SCR Marta Konarzewska; PROD Agnieszka Jastrzebska, Mikolaj Lizut. Poland, 2024, color, 105 min. In Ukrainian, Spanish, English, Russian, German and Wolof with English subtitles. NOT RATED
Run Time: 105 Minutes
Opening Date: Thursday, December 12, 2024
Genre: Drama