The plot of Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk’s new film ‘Pamfir’ hinges on a smugglers’ tunnel in the mountains between Ukraine and Romania. The protagonist, Pamfir, once a legendary smuggler, is forced by circumstances beyond his control to return to his life of crime. Only this time, his son Nazar, much to his father’s discomfort, gets entangled in the job – because only he is slim enough to get through the tunnel.
It's a familiar ‘one last job’ scenario, and the results are a study of moral choice and responsibility in the most difficult of settings: the poor villages of the Ukrainian Carpathians, where economic opportunities are few and the rule of law is loose, at best.
