UNDER THE VOLCANO Discovery

US Premiere

Damian Kocur’s follow-up to his acclaimed debut BREAD AND SALT (2022) makes 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. –Julia Kipnis