The film is set in the 1939–1943 time frame and its central theme is Ukrainian anti-Polish hatred culminating in massacres of Poles in Volhynia.

The screenplay was based on the collection of short stories titled Hate (Polish: Nienawiść) by Stanisław Srokowski.

The movie tells the story of a young Polish girl, Zosia Głowacka, from a village settled by Ukrainians, Poles and Jews in Volhynia.

[4] The story begins shortly before the outbreak of World War II in 1939 with the marriage of Zosia's sister to a Ukrainian.

During the wedding, Zosia's father decides that she has to marry an older village administrator and a widower, Maciej Skiba, despite her being deeply in love with a young, local Ukrainian boy, Petro.

These attacks are met with severe actions from the Polish government, including closing Orthodox churches and the humiliation of the Ukrainian population.

As a part of a massive deportation of the Polish population carried out by the Soviets in 1939–1941, Zosia, Maciej and his children, are about to be sent to Siberia or Kazakhstan to do forced labour.

When two members of the Home Army arrive at the meeting, as agreed without weapons, they get surrounded by the UPA soldiers, captured, and then dismembered by horses.

Zosia escapes with her child, but as she runs away, she sees Poles being tortured, including pregnant women being stabbed in womb, people getting disemboweled and getting their eyes gouged out.

In one place, she runs into a unit of the German Army, which saves her from certain death, just moments before Ukrainians are about to kill her and her child.

The Germans are astonished at first as to why she walks alongside them, but when they find more and more stacks of murdered Poles on their way, they feel sorry for her and escort her to the place where her sister, Helena, lives.

Subsequent scenes show the UPA rushing through the forest, exultantly celebrating while leading a cart occupied by the Poles who killed Helena's family and other Ukrainians, but now disfigured, mauled and visibly tortured as punishment for the retaliatory attacks.

[6] Filming took place in: Lublin, Kolbuszowa, Kazimierz Dolny, Rawa Mazowiecka, Sanok and Skierniewice, from 19 September 2014 to 21 August 2015.

[15] Jakub Majmurek wrote that Volhynia has met his high expectations and is one of the best movie describing the history of the "bleeding lands".

[16] Ewa Siemaszko, who cooperates with the Institute of National Remembrance to uncover the historical facts of the massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, thinks that the movie shows the events accurately.

Ewa Siemaszko additionally remarked that the massacres of Poles in Volhynia was genocide with exceptional cruelty – "genocidium atrox".

The author cited expectations of some political experts that the movie may chill the relations, arouse negative emotions in Ukraine and be exploited by the Russians to unleash anti-Ukrainian propaganda.

The head of the Ukrainian Association in Poland, Piotr Tyma, supported the ban by asserting that the film undermined Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation efforts.

The Ukrainian media accused the director of making a biased film "based only on Polish historical sources".

However, Ukraine's foreign ministry strongly recommended the Polish embassy to call off the screening for the sake of "public order".

[20] The Polish Institute in Kyiv followed the recommendation from Ukraine's foreign ministry and called off the presentation of a film set against the backdrop of World War II massacres.