Lukas works as an interpreter for an international monitoring mission. On a trip to southern Ukraine, a series of mishaps leaves him stranded in a small town near the Dnipro River, far from his orderly life in Kyiv. With nowhere to go, he ends up staying with Vova, an eccentric local whose schemes and stories seem to follow a logic of their own.
At first, Lukas is desperate to get back. But Vova and his daughter Marushka gradually draw him into a world of unexpected encounters, strange business ideas and days that rarely go according to plan. What seems absurd to an outsider is simply everyday life here, shaped by the region’s complicated past and the stubborn inventiveness of its people.
Inspired by years of documentary observation in the Kherson region, Roman Bondarchuk’s fiction debut blends dry humour, vivid landscapes and a touch of the surreal. VOLCANO is a gently unpredictable journey into a place that seems forgotten by time, where getting lost might be the beginning of something new.