Western Ukraine, on the eve of a traditional carnival. After months of absence, Pamfir, a model husband and father, returns to his native village where he’s known as “Pamfir” (“stone” in English), a nickname he inherited from his grandfather and which he dons when smuggling goods across the border, his family’s long-standing business. The love for his family is so unconditional that when his only child starts a fire in the prayer house, Pamfir has no other choice but to reconnect with his troubled past to repair his son’s wrongdoing. He will be taken on a risky path with irreversible consequences.
“Through Pamfir’s story, I wanted to raise the issue of Ukrainian emigration and the chasm that separates Ukraine from European Union. However, at the same time, I wanted to tell the story of an ordinary man reduced to despair. A man who, in trying to preserve his ideal world, transgresses a whole series of ethical norms and human laws to offer a better future to his son – at all costs. It is a story of an honest man who becomes a beast. But it is also a story about love that can be gentle and cruel at the same time.”
- Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk