“...a stop-in-your-tracks debut” (Screen Daily)
A highlight at Cannes, Pamfir combines the seething tension of the gangster genre with the raw beauty of peasant farm life in a mountain village, western Ukraine. A rough-edged but noble ex-smuggler, Leonid, arrives home from work abroad. After his son commits arson, Leonid returns to his roots to pay his debts, running contraband across the Romanian border. He runs afoul of the corrupt authorities, setting up a showdown during the chaotic festivities of a traditional pagan carnival. The Director, Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, describes Pamfir as a picture that flirts with multiple genres, “…a maze for the viewer to follow, after they think, I’ve seen it all before.”
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