Oleksandr Yatsentyuk, Ivan Sharon, Stanislav Potiak, Solomiia Kyrylova
Set in the run-up to a traditional carnival in rural Western Ukraine, writer-director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk’s feature debut follows an eponymous ex-smuggler whose plans to go straight are thwarted by small-town corruption.
When Pamfir (Oleksandr Yatsentyuk) returns to his home on the Ukrainian border after months abroad, he’s determined to earn an honest living, but his plans are quickly derailed by his teenage son Nazar’s (Stanislav Potyak) misguided actions. To set things right, Pamfir has no choice but to take on a new and uniquely risky smuggling job, for a crime syndicate operating in a place where all the rules have changed.
Part drama, part thriller, part noir-inflected fairytale, Pamfir is violent, raw and bloody, but also a tender portrait of a family man trying to raise his son well despite his own chequered past. Shot in long takes and set amid forests swirling with mist in the run-up to the traditional ‘Malanka’ carnival – a wild pagan festival featuring straw costumes, wooden masks and centuries-old rites and traditions – it’s a propulsive, genre-defying debut that paints an elemental, unvarnished portrait of Ukraine.