A Ukrainian movie “Volcano” (“Vulkan”) about the adventures of an OSCE interpreter in Ukraine has won the Golden Apricot prize at the 15th Film Festival in Yerevan, Armenia.
Held on July 8-14, it is one of the most popular and acknowledged film festivals of the region. The movie by the Ukrainian director Roman Bondarchuk was named the best live-action film in 2018.
“This is the first international award for ‘Volcano,’ which, I am sure, will lay the foundations for its future festivals’ victories,” said Philip Ilyenko, the chairman of the Ukrainian state film agency Derzhkino, when congratulating the “Volcano” production team.
The film production took more than three years, with filmmakers from Ukraine, Germany and Monaco joining efforts. In 2015, its script won the Coronation of the Word literary award in Ukraine.
“Volcano” tells the story of an OSCE interpreter Lucas, whose car disappears during the monitoring mission in Kherson Oblast, so he finds himself stranded near a remote village in the southern Ukrainian steppe. Discovering the mysterious and somewhat chaotic lifestyle of the locals, he is forced to step out of his comfort zone and rethink his life.
For Bondarchuk, it is a feature movie debut. The director is known for his documentaries.
His documentary “Dixieland” won the national competition of the Odesa Film Festival in 2017. The year before, “Ukrainian Sheriffs” was among the candidates to be submitted from Ukraine for the Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film.
The world premiere of “Volcano” took place on July 1 at the 53rd International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary, the Czech Republic, and received positive reviews. Bondarchuk used the premiere to draw attention to Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia, including filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, and express his support and admiration for them.
The Ukrainian premiere of “Volcano” will take place on July 18 during the 9th Odesa International Film Festival.
