Discoveries from Bulgaria World Cinema

A quite line in the capital city. A little girl, Veseto, slips out of home unnoticed, attracted by the voices of children playing in the yard. when the kids get tired of playing hide-and-seek, they scatter and Veseto sets out in a long stroll across the city, full of exciting adventures. She talks to a chimney sweep, stops to look at some land surveyors at work, watches an interesting football game at the stadium, enjoys herself at the fair, extemporizes as an actress and has a trying experience on a building site. All the people in the neighborhood start looking for the lost child. In the evening, Veseto reappears. She is back to the arms of her mother, while the people in the neighborhood prove by deeds their human solidarity, their love for children and their resolve to struggle for peace, a must for children's future all over the world.

Ilie, a small-town police chief, wants to build a modest comfortable life for himself, but ends up making the wrong choices. Middle-aged and alienated, he feels the need to be a part of something - to build an orchard, even a home. Although dubious things happen in the village, Ilie only sees what suits him. The moment he gets involved in the village marks the beginning of his collapse. In a vacuum of solutions, he tries to be what he has never been before: the justice seeker who arrests everyone guilty.

Nikola is a middle-aged man struggling to make sense of his life in his native Bulgaria and to say goodbye to his loved ones before leaving for Germany in search of a better life. This is a story about the last days of the past and the hope of a new beginning.

Group of friends meet again, 13 years after their prom because of a problem of one of them, and face the opportunity to experience the things in life they have always put aside in life so far.

It is a story about a group of friends who live in a small seaport town. Their lifestyle is rigorous, their joys are simple and their sex life is raw. Their concepts of man's dignity, friendship and duty are wrong and primitive. The film helps us to understand and forgive them.

Three young girls try to flee from unemployment in the country: they arrive in the capital city of Sofia to look for a job and a different future. The three of them try to survive, fighting...

Six year old Azad (a Kurd from Iraq) was engaged to his cousin Vian but after that the two kids were separated due to the political situation. At 19, Azad accidentally witnessed the murder of Vian's father and had to leave the country. On board the ship to Europe he met a beautiful girl and fell in love with her without recognizing that she was his fiancée Vian. Vian, on her part, did not reveal herself to him because she thought he had been involved in the murder of her father and she tried to suppress her feelings towards Azad.

An honest, hard-working schoolteacher in a small Bulgarian town is driven to desperate measures to avoid financial ruin.

A military satire inspired by wild real-life events from the 1990s when, in the chaotic aftermath of the fall of communism, a task force comprised of high-ranking Bulgarian army officers and psychics embarked on a top-secret military operation in the small village of Tsarichina to dig up an elusive alien artifact that would change the course of history and make Bulgaria great again.

A film director goes back to the place where he was born to shoot a film about his father - a resistance hero.

Luka, a young and ambitious soldier, embeds himself in the legendary Fort Kairos where heroic warriors defend the remains of civilization. His hopes to serve as an elite sniper are crushed when he is assigned to maintenance and must submit to the code of Kairos: obedience-endurance-sacrifice.

In the late 1980s, stage actor Alexander Petrov is banned from theatre without any apparent reason. When he reappears, after the demise of the Communist regime, he discovers that he had been denounced by the one man he admired most, his master and friend. He discovers this fact at the very moment that he is called upon to deliver a funeral eulogy for the man. Devastated, Petrov declares that he is retiring from public life. That’s when Markov offers his help. An old acquaintance, Markov was a former director of the secret service, who has become a successful businessman. Now, in the mid-1990s, the country is wracked by unretstrained capitalism, along with violence and gang wars. Markov, an admirer of Petrov’s stage talents, offers to make him the leader of a new political party aiming at rescuing the country. Can this work? Is Markov the right man to be allied with? Petrov must make a fateful decision.

Strahinja and his wife Ababuo left Ghana with a dream of a better life in Europe. Instead of reaching the western part of the continent, they were deported back to Serbia. Strahinja has started to build himself a career, while Ababuo is unable to fulfil her ambitions and she feels increasingly frustrated. When she disappears one day, Strahinja sets out to find her… A crystal clear, humanistic story about the need to find one’s place in the world. It’s also a tale of love, the most profound testimony of which might also be the most painful.

The wife of a Bulgarian POW camp's warden falls in love with a Serbian prisoner at the end of World War I.

When Tsanko Petrov, a railroad worker, finds millions of lev on the train tracks, he decides to turn the entire amount over to the police. Grateful, the state rewards him with a new wristwatch… which soon stops working. Meanwhile, Julia Staikova, the head of PR for the Ministry of Transport, loses his old watch. Here starts Petrov’s desperate struggle to get back not only his old watch, but his dignity.

This is an epic screen presentation showing the creation, the consolidation and the power of First Bulgarian Kingdom and the first Bulgarian ruler Khan Asparuh. The second part of the great historical epic - "The Migration" - tells about the long journey to the land of the Bulgarians of today's Bulgaria. Here the young Khan Asparukh laid the foundations of the new state. The authors adhere to the established historical versions for this event. The film builds on the impressive mass scenes and the convincing served psychological characteristics of the main characters. The image of Asparoukh is a natural center of the story, in which many minor persons recreate the environment of the Khan. Romantic exalted, Asparukh is shown as capable leader of the people, consistently implement his own ideas.

A small town is dealing with drought.

Four friends and three girls spend a summer on a desolated beach, living in an abandoned hut.

A sports drama that follows a disco security guard who is nearing the end of his martial arts career, but also has a moral debt from the past coming to pay. A drama about a group of guys who have to choose between water and fire but want to keep both.

Bay Ganyo is the national anti-hero. He personifies arrogance, insolence, greediness, and the absolute incapability to adopt any civilization principles of relationships. This protagonist was featured by great Bulgarian writer Aleko Konstantinov in the end of 19 c., both with an incredible sense of humor and anguish. Whether being in the Wiener Opera, or visiting a famous scientist at his home, or shopping, or just walking down the streets, this Bulgarian character, Bay Ganyo, is no more than a hopeless barbarian. The film makes new interpretation of this classical literature work. The comic adventures of Baj Ganjo are reconstructed in retro-nostalgic tonality. The final episode when the protagonist appears on the stage of the Wiener Opera among the singers participating in a Mozart's opera is the culmination of the transition of the farce into a tragic comedy.

Two men and a bird, trapped in a snowstorm in the middle of nowhere, try to solve a mystery as it slowly devours them.

In this picture, the barrier epitomizes the line between reality and dreams, the pattern of harmony and happiness. The delicate, pretty, sensitive Dorotea and the sedate middle-aged composer Antoni meet by chance. He gives her shelter in his house. Famous composer falls under the spell of young Dorothea: A pretty, thin-skinned, though quite an eccentric girl.

The corpse of a woman is found in front of Maria’s apartment window. She agrees to take charge of the funeral, becoming involved in her neighbour’s existence. Maria adopts the woman’s unattended dogs and forms a bond with her estranged son. After the burial, Maria tries to reclaim her own life back, but a haunting feeling lingers.

In a small Bulgarian village troubled by the ongoing refugee crisis, a local postman runs for mayor—and learns that even minor deeds can outweigh good intentions.

An American action star from the 90's is shooting a movie in Bulgaria, while three of his (now grown up) fans try to meet their childhood idol. After a series of bad decisions, the three fans are between the Russian mafia, huge amount of drugs, and huge debt. So they decide to rob the Hollywood production which their childhood idol is shooting.

A father and son move to a deep countryside, in a bid to forget the wife and mother they’ve lost. One day a mysterious woman visits their farm.

The main heroes are twin brothers. The first is responsible young fellow and excellent footballer. The second one is an undependable gambler. The police are after him. A pretty girl stands in between them. She has profoundly fallen for the footballer. By coincidence, the twins change places, which result in a formidable mess and funny situations. Ultimately, all the misunderstandings are settled and the couple re-joins.

Going out for cigarettes at midnight, a woman sees a boy holding a big tortoise. Real or imaginary, this encounter changes her life for good.

A semi-fictional account on the fatidic September 11, 1973, when the military commanded by General Pinochet took over the power from socialist president Salvador Allende, initiating a dictatorship that lasted until 1988 causing the deaths and disappearances of many people.

In a village in Anatolia at the foothills of the mountains, a young man resists the domination of landlords and local gangs while striving to win back his wife's love and affection.

Two trains uncontrollably move towards each other within temporal boundaries of a human life. One of them is taking a genial young man to his unforeseen future; he would marry his beloved; have a son; become a brilliant doctor; do his duty and save the live of enemies of the communist regime; get a 20-years sentence for that. Prison would turn out to be an unbearable nightmare; his wife would eventually give in to the tortures of the authorities and seek divorce; this would mean no one to visit him in prison. 15 years without any news about his child, only a snapshot of his family on which the tree of them are smiling and happy.

A film that presents the modern woman through the images of the four main archetypes - in search of her strength, sexuality, independence, freedom from prejudice and limitations. A comedy about female emancipation whose plot is built through irony, sarcasm and a moderate dose of audacity. Four women, completely different from each other, with completely different personalities, interests, morals and lifestyles. The protagonists of the film are united by a "karmic situation in a past life".

Adventurer Felipe ventures on a quest with Commander Smollet to stop a villain in search of a gem that will restore life on Earth.

In a dystopian future, a nation of bio-titans has been created and the female sex and procreation have become obsolete. As the Earth turns toxic, the bio-titans are eager to colonise the cosmos on board a colossal spaceship, taking with them only one female body kept barely alive as a reminder of the troubled past. But everything changes when the immortal calligrapher Krypton, tasked with creating an indestructible copy of the entire written heritage of his kin, sees a forbidden book turn into a feisty girl, Gargara.

A silly prince wants to marry a beautiful peasant girl. His guards kidnap her, but the girl escapes and returns to her beloved. Meanwhile, a UFO lands in the kingdom and the aliens witness nuisances, court intrigues, and lies. They are not allowed to meddle in other people's affairs, but they still influence the happy ending.

Ursus is a story of three outcasts—Georgian unemployed film director, Ukrainian ex-stuntman and a Canadian female fighter for the wild animals' rights—making their desperate journey from Tbilisi, the capital of ex-Soviet Georgia plunged into a civil war, to Berlin at the beginning of 1992. Each of the three characters pursues their own goal without even knowing how much their fates are intertwined.

1991. Two years after their adventure in Romania, young Pago, Rice and Bibi have returned to their quiet and monotonous lives. When Bibi decides to meet Yuliya, a Bulgarian girl with whom he has been corresponding for months, the group of friends embarks on a new journey, this time to Sofia. However, Yuliya hides a secret that throws the three Italians at the center of an international intrigue, ending up in the crosshairs of Balkan crime and the Italian secret services.

After yet another failed attempt at producing gold, the alchemist Sir Lavoie, leaves the capital to seek the advice of a colleague in another city. His house is left to his three servants: the maid Doll, the footman Face and the lackey Satl. They decide to get rich by posing as alchemists and helping people solve their problems, even though they understand nothing of alchemy.

А film about the world-famous prophetess Vanga with unique, hitherto unseen shots, in which she is the main character and in which she speaks only, sharing how the gift of seeing into the future overshadowed her, what miracles she witnessed in her long life. Vanga meets the tragic fates of different people, to whom she inspires faith and comfort. At the same time, with her own funds, she built the church "St. Petka" in Rupite, painted by the artist Svetlin Russev. The film was shot for years until the last days of the prophetess, leaving it to mature in the minds of the authors and is dramatically meaningful with the attitude towards it and with today's view of the presented events.

Elena, a theater director in love with her work, is 32 years old when she realizes that she cannot have children. Faced with a choice - to try to conceive in vitro with her beloved husband, the conductor Leon Mayer, or to adapt the theater program with which she transforms the lives of orphans in far Africa, Elena will rediscover the word "mother". The film is inspired by a true story.

Maika is a mother who losts her son Stoyan, while the body of a young woman who has been strangled appears in another part of the same city. Israel is the detective in charge to the investigation. Both events are united by the enormous power of a hidden society that make a purpose: to save Humanity from ignorance and attachment to the past, so that everyone can forgive themselves.

TV talk show hosts bait young Yana into confessing her unusual relationship with an aging rocker. This leads to a chase by a vigilante group of hunters and other complications.

Blaga is a seventy-year-old recently widowed former teacher and a woman of firm morals. When telephone scammers con her out of the money that she had saved for her husband’s grave, her moral compass slowly begins to lose its bearings…

This film is a comedy about a poor man named Purko. Purko always fails in his attempt to escape from poverty. The film illustrates the social and the moral atmosphere in Bulgaria during the 1930's.

1968. A burned book. A failed life. Humiliations that are not forgiven. Traumas that are not forgotten. Small "rebellions" and small "betrayals". A puzzle of many human destinies, in which small "no"s form one big "yes"...

Stories of love, murder, mystery and control interconnect in lock-down inside the confines of a Sofia apartment during the pandemic.

This story of two temperamentally different brothers takes place in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku during the 1970s. The elder brother Jalil is a married postal worker who keeps bees as a hobby. Younger brother Simurg is more adventurous by nature and capable of going after his goals, not just dreaming about them. Jalil has a recurring memory: once, when he was still a kid, his mother, pregnant with Simurg, took him to a women’s sauna. When both brothers fall in love for the same beautiful girl, their differences become apparent once again.

Days before Valentine's day and their wedding, Cindy Hunter, editor-in-chief of a tabloid and Damon Tuckland, a successful therapist encounter a strange plant that magically puts Cindy's mind in Damon's body and vice versa. Now the couple really finds out how the other half lives. In a series of comic mishaps at work, with relatives and at home, Cindy and Damon must become better people and figure out a way to reverse the "awkward" situation before their wedding or face a lifetime as each other. It's the ultimate body-swapping comedy with a heart that gives a brand-new meaning to the term "The Opposite Sex".

Vasil is a Bulgarian immigrant who lives on the street in Spain. Intelligent and charismatic, he has an amazing talent for chess and bridge, so much so, in fact, that despite being homeless, he manages to make a name for himself in an exclusive and prestigious club in the city.

Animari and Zlatko's mission is to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds get the best possible care and education. Will they manage to find funding to welcome more children and to start a high school?

A young literature teacher joins an evening technical school where her students - miners, metallurgists, builders and drivers - clash with her literary ideals. To understand them, she visits their families, workplaces and reads their essays on “The Best Person I Know,” learning their hidden struggles and reexamining her own moral judgments.

The story of six young people addicted to heroin in Sofia, Bulgaria.

The year is 1948 and a counter-revolutionary gang is active in the Pirin region. A State Security officer managed to infiltrate the gang. He becomes "one of their own", but isn't in a rush to complete his task.

Moth is freed on parole after spending time in prison on a wrongful conviction of murder. Jailed shortly before the Bulgarian communist coup of 1944, he now finds himself in a new and alien world— the totalitarian Sofia of the 60s. His first night of freedom draws the map of a diabolical city full of decaying neighborhoods, gloomy streets, and a bizarre parade of characters.

There is a dragon, which threatens the life of the shacked village. The attempts of lumberjacks, shepherds and hunters to get rid of the menace are without success. Their battle with the imaginary mythical monster makes them realize that their real enemies are the master Kolota and his servants. The dragon is beaten not physically but spiritually.

Serhii, a young man who fills his days with volunteer work, loses contact with his mother living in occupied territory. When his mother finally decides to evacuate, he learns that a humanitarian convoy from his hometown has been destroyed in a bombing raid.

Robert Sternvall, a German journalist, returns to Artsakh in 2016 to cover the war which has been reignited after a 22-year ceasefire. In the result of his journalistic investigation, Robert meets Sophia, a young opera singer, who happens to be the daughter of missing photojournalist Edgar Martirosyan, whom Robert abandoned in captivity during the fall of the village of Talish in 1992. Robert and Sophia’s frequent rendezvouses ignite a passionate romance...

It's 1980. Malin is fatherless, angry, and in trouble. At 20, he's spent a year in jail for assaulting a lover of Lily, his mother. In her desk he finds a soldier's photograph and assumes he's found his father. He confronts the man, now a teacher, and gets nowhere. At home again, he mocks his mother. Finally, she tells him her grim story, from the year before his birth. We see a people's court, where Lily's parents seek justice for their grandchild to be. We follow Lily to a prison camp, to the city where she's told to inform on the only person who's been kind, to an asylum, and finally to her current poverty and loneliness. How will Malin respond to these revelations?

Sava, her mother and little brother live in a skyscraper in Belgrade. That normal life is interrupted by the bombing of Serbia. A shelter becomes his new home and Milica, the daughter of the priest he is in love with, leaves the country.

Restless teenager Horia takes off on his father's old motorbike in a cross-country journey to reunite with his love. On the road, he is joined by Stela, a sassy 13-year-old, and an unlikely friendship blooms.