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Pamfir (2022)

★★★ — Pamfir (2022)

Pamfir is the debut feature from Ukrainian director Dmytro Sukholytkyi-Sobchuk, developed over several years before its premiere at Cannes in 2022 (in the Directors' Fortnight section), where it arrived at a moment of acute international attention on Ukraine following Russia's full-scale invasion earlier that year. The film was shot on location in the Carpathian border region, lending it a specific, almost ethnographic texture rooted in the Hutsul cultural traditions of western Ukraine. Its co-production spread across five countries, including France, Poland, Luxembourg, Chile, and Ukraine itself, a fairly typical arrangement for ambitious European art-house cinema seeking to pool resources. The strong box-office return for a film of this scale suggests it found a meaningful audience beyond the festival circuit.

A-Z World Movie Tour Ukraine Pamfir is a visually striking Ukrainian film with a powerful presence, grounded in the Carpathian borderlands, steeped in local culture, and anchored by a strong lead performance from Serhii Filimonov as a former smuggler trying to go straight for his family. The story follows Leonid, a man caught between a new life of honesty and old ties pulling him back into the underworld. There’s real weight to his struggle, and the film does an excellent job capturing the tension between tradition, survival, and fatherhood. The cinematography is nice but bland with misty forests, dim village streets, intimate close-ups that feel almost documentary-like in their realism. You can feel the cold, the isolation, the quiet desperation. But that same atmosphere becomes the film’s biggest hurdle: it’s very slow-paced. For the first hour, not much happens beyond mood-building, long walks, meaningful glances, simmering stares. It’s deliberate, yes, but borders on stagnant. Then, finally, around the 60-minute mark, everything erupts in a raw, brutal, and brilliantly shot fight scene that feels like pent-up energy finally exploding. It’s visceral, chaotic, and one of the most memorable sequences in recent Ukrainian cinema. But it also highlights how little action or narrative momentum there was before it. Undoubtedly well-made, culturally rich, and worth watching for its authenticity and that one electrifying clash. But unless you’re fully onboard with slow-burn drama, patience will be tested. A good film, just a little too stretched to be great.

Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2022 | Watched: 2025-09-16

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Where to watch (UK)

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Physical: Amazon UK

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