Discoveries from Bulgaria World Cinema

Silviya is an excellent student, favorite of the teachers, but she does not do well in math. Silviya puts a comma in the school journal between the number 1 and 9 in the absences column in order to hide her absence from math class. The school regulation is set; three absences mean an administrative punishment. Two of her innocent classmates are punished, numbers 1 and 9, not number 19, which is Silviya. The teachers trust the "good girl". Silviya feels guilty.She is struggling between right and wrong. She must find the right answer for herself.

In the slow, sticky summer of late-90s Eastern Europe, twelve-year-old Ro sets out to procure a pirated copy of Eraserhead by David Lynch. Her journey—through crumbling friendships, stolen cigarettes, and VHS-era power games—unfolds in a world where childhood slips quietly into something else, and cinema becomes the only available glimpse of escape.

The action takes place at the end of WWII. It is 1944 on the Yugoslav front, where the Bulgarian Army is fighting bloody battles against the retreating Nazi units. Several lorries loaded with Bulgarian soldiers make a detour so as to deliver ammunitions to an army unit. They are people with different convictions sharing a common goal - to come out victorious and to return to their peaceful everyday life. Among them are people who believe in the triumph of the new system and for whom the difficult crusade is a confirmation of their ideals. They are also uncertain people. For the youngest this is the first trial in life. A young Yugoslav woman helps them find the road through the dangerous front line. Her romance with the one of Bulgarian soldiers symbolizes solidarity in the struggle against the common enemy. After a series of difficulties and mishaps, the soldiers manage to deliver the ammunitions to their comrades.

Professor Dimov is a diplomat who has been recruited as a spy by a foreign intelligence service. The suspicions fall on Dr. Belcheva. Major Kalinov is entrusted with the investigation of the case. He learns that she is Dimov's mistress. Paris, France. Dimov and Belcheva go out leaving a bag with secret documents in Belcheva's hotel room. Kalinov manages to retrieve the documents. After this incident Belcheva dies in hospital from poisoning. On board the plane Kalinov exposes the professor as a spy. Bulgarian counterintelligence officers arrest him.

Within this labyrinth of US highways, 4 million trucks traverse vast landscapes, carrying 10.5 billion tons of freight annually. A substantial proportion of these drivers are immigrants, including both legal and undocumented individuals. Confined to truck cabins for years, they face limited prospects of deeper integration into American society, often remaining within their ethnic bubbles. When envisioning a trucker burning rubber up and down the US highways, our three protagonists are far from the typical image that might come to mind. Still in the prime of life, an actress, a painter, and an engineer left everything behind to spend their lives behind the wheel of a truck in search of the elusive American dream.

Three humorous but bitter stories turn into an existential drama in the life of the little people, who must take it all in with dignity and find some sense in the absurdity of it all. The acceptable way to present that is through the means of reality, severity, frankness, concise dialogue and documental simplicity.

Rado, an orphan from a poor Sofia neighborhood, has been in and out of school for troubled youth for years. Although he is approaching adulthood, he is yet to finish 8th grade. He cannot reconcile his pride and sense of justice with the kind of education provided by people who are deprived of sensibility and human warmth. Rado asserts his right to freedom by frequently running away. During one of his escapes he meets the love of his life, Albena. She is a good student, and comes from a well-educated, sophisticated family. This new and unexpected connection intensifies Rado's desire for freedom and independence, and leads them both into uncharted territory.

After her father's death, young Frenchwoman Ellen Tibaud arrives in the Bulgarian village of Gradishte, led there by the mysterious founder of their family and renowned katar-bogomil, Robert Burg. All that he left behind was a parchment filled with incomprehensible signs and letters in the form of drawings. It is up to Ellen to decipher his message to his grandchildren and the world. In her search, she meets Father Peter and adventurer Victor, who has been searching for the manuscript of "The Sacred Book of the Bogomils" for some time. The relations that develop will change everyone.

Smart, angry, self-reliant Dida will stop at nothing to achieve a single tangible goal – to buy a plane ticket so she can join her estranged mother in the United States.

Captain Velkov was sent chief of a border post near the village of Novi Izvor, where he was a partisan. In Novi Izvor a celebration is being prepared to mark the switching on of the electricity. Saboteurs cut the cables, killed the watchman and set fire to the machinery on the farm.

Attempts of a mosquito to conquer a lush fly.

During the socialist regime in Bulgaria, the migration from villages to bigger towns brings a lot of problems and sadness to some of the party activists.

A boy and a girl are left homeless while expecting their baby to be born. Together they leave the familiar world and set to the unknown.

Sofia, Bulgaria during World War II - Pesho, a poor boy from a working class family, falls in love with Violeta, a rich girl.

In a yurt on the snow-covered fields of the North, Nanook and Sedna live following the traditions of their ancestors. Alone in the wilderness, they look like the last people on Earth. Nanook and Sedna's traditional way of life starts changing - slowly, but inevitably. Hunting becomes more and more difficult, the animals around them die from inexplicable deaths and the ice has been melting earlier every year. Chena, who visits them regularly, is their only connection to the outside world - and to their daughter Ága, who has left the icy tundra a long time ago due to family feud. When Sedna's health deteriorates, Nanook decides to fulfill her wish. He embarks on a long journey in order to find Ága.

Near a large Bulgarian city begins the construction of a large factory. There is a fertile land in close by. Prof. Dimov, Director of the Environment Protection Institute has to submit his official approval for the civil works to begin. He and his co-worker Prof. Radev refuse.

A delicate analysis of the movement of the human spirit and the love between men and women which has the power to reveal the beauty of the soul from the cradle to the grave.

A boy travels through the whole city using one ticket.

A 70-year-old man, former mayor of a village, recalls his life: the difficult post-war years, the forced collectivisation of the land, the migration of the population. He has sacrificed his personal life trying to perform his office conscientiously.

Based on the book: "Bobby The Blessed and the other American" (2015) by Emil Andreev. Pure love, priceless medicine and a accidental meeting with the future president of the USA - John Kennedy change the life of a man. Bombardment in Sofia during 1944 make him lose his mind, but he saves his innocent soul.

Film about a group of kids helping solve a gang of criminals.

A story of praise and destruction. A story of worshipping the darkness in the sky. Of contempt in death. Of the crown of thorns stuck in the stone head and the water flowing from it. A story of treason...in the name of God and the human.

The film is a romantic comedy, inspired by the fairy-tale atmosphere of the Hofmann fantasies.

A famous metropolitan journalist decides to pay a surprise visit to his classmate Pancho in the countryside. Pancho has gone to town and his wife has to greet the guest. Under the curious eyes of the neighbors, the two are waiting for him to come back home. The awkwardness between them intensifies. How will they sleep under one roof? What will people say?

Anton is a 30-year-old artist who deals in forgery of paintings, money and all sorts of petty scams. Extremely brash, cynical and unscrupulous. He has few friends and many enemies. In addition, he borrowed money from the cruel gangster Sofia, who sent the mutt Stambata on his heels to collect the debt. Just when Anton is cornered by the printing press, Major Georgi Stoyanov appears - an ambitious, charming, smart, but at the same time unscrupulous policeman. He offers him, or rather forces him to get close to the rich business lady and patron Maria and find out if she hides the Picasso- Harlequin painting that disappeared ten years ago, and in return he will buy him some time in front of Sofia. A tangled game of cat and mouse begins between them all, in which only the most cunning and unscrupulous will win, and the prize is Pablo Picasso's priceless Harlequin.

"The Hedgehogs" are a group of youngsters who are trying to gain control of the empty space between the blocks of flats, which they want to convert into a basketball court. The resistance of the neighbors is soon overcome and the court is laid down. Training courses in basketball for kids are set up. The ambitious coach is selecting only those of the boys who are able to carry out his most absurd orders. Two of them happen to be late, so he immediately fires them from the team. Thus the 'hedgehogs' war' against the indifference of the adult breaks out.

Pistol, Suitcase and Three stinking barrels is a gangster comedy which tells the story of the 23-year-old student Anton, a.k.a "The Beautiful". He has a dream but in order for it to come true he must first find money. The Beautiful decides to risk it all and unfortunately he finds himself mixed up in a hell of a mess of intertwining absurd situations with a drug lord fascinated with Lego, a group of small time crooks, a dangerous top cop, a sexy blond, corrupted government agents, a football player and his mistress

1984. In the shadow of the Iron Curtain, a nation dares to challenge the gods. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the socialist revolution, Bulgaria faces its best mountaineers in the greatest test on the planet - the deadly Mount Chomolungma, also known as Everest. But this is not just a climb.

A Bulgarian film taking place in the 19th century.

A tragic comedy about an orphan girl who knows nothing better than the animal way but at the end comes to realize her only chance - to be human.

The movie is about the great historical figure Vasil Levski. It follows three different plot lines: the relationship with his mother, Gina, the relationship with his loved one, Ana, and the plans for freeing Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire. The movie starts in 1846 and follows Vasil Levski's whole life until his hanging in 1873.

One night – seemingly just like any other. Two police officers find the body of the well-known drug addict Lazar near the railroad tracks in Sofia. This is how the night of 9 November, 2019 begins – 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the regime change in Bulgaria. Three teams of police officers are patrolling the streets of Sofia, doing their job as they believe is right, while facing the challenges posed by contemporary Bulgarian reality.

The end of the 70s. Anton Krastev, a DOP and his wife Diana are separated by the Iron curtain - she fled with their son Antoan to Western Berlin while he stayed in Bulgaria. She believes that Antoan can only be cured in Germany. But Anton can't live without his job. He works with the best film director who is a high ranking Communist. The State Security Services are keeping a zealous eye on Anton. His phone calls are being taped, his letters are being read. His close relations to the power people of the day make him even more suspicious. The State Security Services put an end to Anton's relation with his wife. Thorn apart, Anton and Diana go through love, alienation and hate. There comes a time though when the powerful friends of Anton lose their power and he loses everything that he's ever loved - his work, his wife and son. Thirty years later Anton shoots the story of his own life. But those who now direct the movie are the very same people who once persecuted him.

Rhodope Mountains at the turn of the 20th century serve as the scene of an unusual love drama. Orphaned Meto falls in love with willful Hatte, the daughter of the wealthy householder Sharko. The boy was raised by his uncle Adil, a harsh man. Everyone is convinced that the love between the young ones is doomed. On the day of her wedding to an unwanted groom, Hatte elopes with Meto. Deli Mehmed, the groom’s father, sets out to seek the girl’s lover and punish him. Adil assumes responsibility for Hatte, announces that it was with him that Hatte eloped and proposes a manly duel between the suitors. Deli Mehmed announces that Adil deserves Hatte. Meto comes back, but Hatte announces that she is staying with the man who gave her protection.

The seven year old Aya spends a lot of time in the theater because her farther, Asen, is an actor. One night Aya falls asleep in the control room. After the end of the show, intrigue, betrayal and tension in the theater group gradually escalate. Asen's illusions collapse, when he finds out that the television star, Boyan, will replace him in an upcoming premiere. Aya's father provokes a scandal, which turns into a drunken brawl. Will Asen succeed to rediscover himself with the unreserved support of his wife and the selfless love of his daughter?

Stephan is a sculptor. He refuses to do work that compromises his integrity. He has a guardian angel he talks to. We can't see him but we can hear his voice commenting on events Stephan gets involved in. As he crosses paths with the Artist, the Professor, the Director, the Poet, the Musician, the Actress and the Beloved, a world of characters arises to display a whole array of personalities and lives that share the spark of the creative spirit but also the lack of successful career. The voice of the angel reflects upon patronage in art and protecting your talent against corruptive forces, yet not through escapism but by learning the rules of the game.

The young Bulgarian Muslim woman Zyulker wants to study and become a teacher. Her father decides to arrange a marriage to her. After the wedding, she runs away and goes to the town. There she starts work in a hostel. Her husband takes her back. He beats and humiliates her. She gives birth to her child prematurely, takes the baby and goes to the school for Muslim in the town. She has to surmount many difficulties. The young woman meets her first teacher Stefanov. The two fall in love. With his help, Zyulker finishes her study successfully and makes up her mind to return to her native village as a teacher. Stefanov follows her and proposes to her. The two embrace.

There were times when stealing girls in these lands has been a worthy vocation, was a habit and a sort of custom in Bulgaria. Only the strongest and most experienced men took the profession up. A young and brave Bulgarian highlander was given the job to bring, no matter how, a certain beautiful girl to be married to somebody.

The Price of Sex is a documentary about young Eastern European women who’ve been drawn into a netherworld of sex trafficking and abuse. Intimate, harrowing and revealing, it is a story told by the young women who were supposed to be silenced by shame, fear and violence. Photojournalist Mimi Chakarova, who grew up in Bulgaria, takes us on a personal investigative journey, exposing the shadowy world of sex trafficking from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Western Europe. Filming undercover and gaining extraordinary access, Chakarova illuminates how even though some women escape to tell their stories, sex trafficking thrives.

Courage without truth. Truth in secret. A secret without a way out. Exit without salvation... Which is the right path of change?

A university student and a girl are in love. The girl’s aunt opposes their love. She has decided to marry her off to a rich suitor. The student decides to cunningly discredit the suitor of her choice before the aunt.

A 55 year old man loses his mother, his only support and care. A Gypsy girl with questionable past joins him on his desperate cross border journey during which they develop a friendship and "come of age" - each their very own way.

An investigator tries to solve a murder, her constant interviews with the main suspect cause the investigation to take many twists and turns as what is said is not always what is meant.

There are essentially two types of people: those who think with their stomachs, and those who think with their hearts.

Maya lives in Burgas on the coast of the Black Sea. She's a young woman trying to find herself. The film features the poetry of Petya Dubarova and is loosely inspired by her life.

The story of two adolescents, Moni and Zhozho, who meet 17-year-old Zheni in 1943 and with whom both fell in love. The events that follow unfold while Bulgaria has to decide on the deportation of 11 343 Jewish citizens in Macedonia and Thrace.

While a woman makes an omelette, we learn how difficult it is to make ends meet. 7-minute short film which won honorable mention at Sundance 2009. Created at the invitation of Capital Weekly as part of the first BC omnibus film '15' - 15 authors, 15 years, 15 short films.

Part fictional documentary, part musical anthropology, scientific magic, and eco-anarchic utopian journey in a landscape of eight parts. You're Kaloyan, the sax player. Or Diana, the Gypsy dancer. You journey together through Bulgaria in search of the utopian village Dolphinovo. It's not Sofia, Paris or New York. That's why this story is rural, rustic and polyphonic. It's like a string of painted walls of village houses, folk songs and allegories. However, who is Ivo? And why does he lead you through these winter landscapes a year later?

The sequel to Balgar: The Movie. The characters go to a scary mansion where a lot of things happen to them.

In the last moments of his life, the writer turns over episodes from his past. He finds the cause of another death, ahead of the last breath.

Two robots journey through a labyrinth and encounter curious characters and extraordinary objects as they reflect on their own existence.

On a rainy spring day, Irina returns to the seaside town where she used to spend the summer holidays as a child. There she meets Boris, whom she has not seen for 20 years. The two set out to rediscover the past, which may change their future.

Bulgaria, the night of October 18, 1922. A rampageous young man - an American, is forced to get off the Orient Express at a small station. The chief of the railway station and his daughter are quite unwilling to put up the stranger. Gradually, the American wins their trust. When the father understands that his daughter has decided to go away to Paris with the American, he makes a potion to sedate him and gets him on a train on the sly. In the morning all that has left from the guest is a piece of paper, which reads "Ernest Hemingway".

This documentary was subjected to condemnation and attempts for institutional censorship as soon as it was done. The film observes how one man makes a career using another in the totalitarian society of Communist Bulgaria.

The members of a music band that separated 30 years ago are forced to reunite.

The documentary film follows the life and career of Milen Tsvetkov against the backdrop of historical events in Bulgaria that have transformed journalism and the media market in the country since 1989.

Documentary about the ex-secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party - Traicho Kostov.

The 10-year-old Yan Bibiyan does mischief and escapades under the influence of the devil kin Fyut. He meets devils, wizards, and witches, which amuses him a lot. But his experiences teach him that goodness is the human quality, which makes life really beautiful and cheerful.

Maria, a beautiful middle-aged woman, former participant in the fight against Nazism is killed. The investigator Urumov discovers the criminal. Urumov wants to know the reason why Dzherikarov has committed the murder. Dzherikarov is a former officer of the king army. Maria's memories expose the fact that she has arrested his commander in the past. By killing Maria, he wants to save his understanding of "officer's honor". Urumov sees that Maria's daughter leaves at the mother's grave an apple. In order to save her illusion, he eats the apple every time. In final talk with Dzherikarov, the murderer condemns himself to death and eats the apple.

The film depicts the incredible metamorphosis of a clerk whose sense of identity and pride are reawakened by an unexpected development.