Feature films

This movie challenges the good mother stereotypes in the patriarchal society, asking questions. How come mothers hurt their own children? How come the society unites itself to violate human dignity? How does an individual survive and what is the price? The story is told freely and the emotion involves us in an experience, where everyone finds either memories of the past or scenes of the present.

Juliet, a white girl, falls in love with a darkskinned Romeo, a divine trumpet player from a Roma orchestra. Her father Satchmo, a leader of the rival white band is disgusted with Romeo’s skin color. At the upcoming festival of trumpeters Romeo must prove to him that, due to his talent, he is the right man for his daughter. Satchmo would give away his daughter’s hand to the boy only if Romeo proves to be better than him.

Two very similar families are trying to get along living in a new neighborhood being built near a complex of prefab apartment blocks. At first the two couples like each other, but their fondness slowly grows into hatred. One of the reasons for this is their desire to be different from each other – but the more they try to differ from their neighbors, the more they become identical both psychologically and physically. This is because they share an identical concept of "being different." Their mutual irritation turns to full-on hatred and they make an attempt at mutual destruction. Their homes, which are set on fire, are not the only damages caused by these attempts: the wife of one of the families and the husband of the other also fall victims in the war. As they sit watching the smoking ruins of their homes, the surviving man and woman quickly discover that they were made for each other.

Alexei Uchitel

We could treat the movie as a tragicomic Balkan-themed Eastern, a story about friendship, love and tolerance and about the impossibility to have them all at once, especially in the Balkans. Lack of harmony results from almost as many reasons as the good intentions that pave the way to it. Egocentrism and chaotic mind or hot temper as well as not thinking twice before acting leads to a tragic mistake and, typically of these lands, it is the most innocent of them all that suffers.

A young man has trouble communicating with people and is seeing a shrink. He falls in love at first sight, then meets three friends and joins their small community. The four youngsters naively decide to make some easy money by blackmailing an elderly woman. Little do they know that a stranger with a shady past and problematic present will turn their lives upside down.

Through two unique female personas the film suggests a metaphysical idea of the present as ever recurring, since the temptations, which the human soul faces, are always the same. But any choice can be made only after the experience of the past is passed on and shared with a kindred spirit in the present. Such is the nature of the relationship between Adriana, the femme fatale of 1938, and the innocent Yura of 2008.

A story about the unrequited love of a student with her piano teacher. About their meeting years later. A fatal secret underlies their diverging paths. Forgiveness is unthinkable...

The world-famous conductor Anton Horn has to overcome conflicts, while preparing the performance of a new musical piece based on the myth about Prometheus. His life changes when he meets Dorothea - a young girl with extraordinary abilities, who is hiding from the police. She leads him into an unknown world, where he experiences supernatural powers, including the magic of flying. Cross the barrier! The film is an analysis of the boundless and contradictory human world. It is a new interpretation of Pavel Vezhinov’s novella – director Mihail Pandoursky’s metaphysical look into the dark abyss of the human subconscious. is a magic mirror that each of us may look into…

Grigor, a plain and guileless man, mockingly nicknamed Gringo, starts hearing an inner voice. This voice claims to be his true character, prompting him to avenge himself for the humiliations and violence done to him all the time. The man offers resistance, but could the temptations and the evil truth be resisted? The inner voice is heard no more after the crime is committed. Was Grigor the perpetrator? What a man he would become after that?

Two kids, German Jews accompanied by an old uncle are trying to escape from the raging fascists towards the land of their ancestors – Palestine. They have to reach Istanbul by train and then to proceed on board a ship. The sudden death of the uncle is the reason why the brother and sister instead in Istanbul find themselves at Sofia railway station. Destiny has prepared the two children to meet an itinerant troupe and from this moment on starts the Bulgarian part of their survival. Shabby hotel rooms, jalopy buses, “tremendous artistic success” and constant shortage of money mark their days as in a colorful merry-go-round. Sofia, Plovdiv, Shoumen and at last Varna, the town they were dreaming of. The poor members of the troupe as one put on pawn the very last they have in order to pay the access of the two children aboard. They will suffer waving them “good bye” but they are happy as well with the good deed achieved – to help your fellowmen in danger. During the WW II Bulgaria managed to rescue all its citizens of Jewish origin – over 50 000 people.

Dju (39) meets her old friend Dana (40), who has just returned to Bulgaria after being abroad for a long time. They head for the sea. On the road they meet Lilly (30), a friend of Dju’s, who joins them. In Krapetz, the northenmost village on the Black Sea coast, they find the peace and harmony they are looking for. But soon this idyll comes to an end. Past conflicts are rekindled. The women discover things they were hiding from each other. One morning they find an Ukrainian, Natasha (27), wounded while escaping from a human trafficking gang. The villagers are unwilling to be involved. Lilly decides to drive Natasha to the nearest town, but the traffickers stop the car, beat Lilly and capture Natasha. Dana, Dju and Lilly are determined to get back the little they have – their human dignity. At night they manage to find both Natasha and their own desire for freedom and life.

Beautiful Anna is confined to her wheelchair in the wake of a car accident. Every night, she talks with radio presenter Rado, who uses her in his programme, reluctant however to become linked by marriage to her, though she is in love with him. By miracle, she begins to walk with difficulty and anguish. Walking takes her to a world of spiritually disabled.

Zlatina has grown up in an institution for abandoned children. So has Lechko, her younger follower. At a fun fair, at the age of twelve, she shows her talent for shooting. The life of Zlatina takes a different turn when a former inmate from the boarding house, Nayden, now an instructor at a shooting gallery, is so impressed by her talent for shooting, that he takes her under his guardianship. He trains her and educates her like Pygmalion. And falls in love with her. However, Zlatina is suspicious of his selflessness and fears the inequality of their relationship. A criminal accident confirms her scares. As she seeks to start life anew, Zlatina keys Lechko, her devoted shadow, into robbing Nayden. She then decides to pass the Greek border pretending to be a prostitute… and ends up in a brothel where her worst nightmare becomes reality… However, it is there, where her life makes an about-turn.

Your best friend is between life and death, alone in an American hospital, over there at the back of beyond. How can you help him if you can’t be there? An ancient legend says that in this forsaken by God and the world place called Bulgaria there are songs that could resurrect. Would you believe it? Would you go out to look for a song against death?

Elena, Koko, Patso and Gosho are high school students in a small town. Koko is in love with Elena. The girl dreams to be a singer. She is excited about a visiting concert of a famous rock band. The event shakes up the town, giving birth to new love affairs, disappointments and complicated relationships.

  is based on a script by Georgi Gospodinov, with the participation of Anna Broquet, Krasimir Dokov, Svetlana Yancheva, Ivan Yurukov.

To Stefan Zweig, with love. Edgar M. and his mother come aboard a small ship to Eden Sanatorium in a spa resort. It is here that the wife, wronged by her husband, will seek a cure for her bad headache, while 13-year-old Edgar is fighting his first male impulses as well as enuresis nocturna, the prettier word for wetting one’s bed. The boy’s amazed gaze ungrily devours the diverse hotel guests, their love weal and woe, while passion lustfully penetrates the walls, carried by the voice of the enchanting opera singer…

Several parallel stories about people who are trying to change their lives via the Internet or are simply having fun online. Philip seeks casual sex in Internet dating. He falls in love with an online ghost wihout knowing she is his wife. Andrey is a hip journalist working on an article about online communication. His experiments in the virtual world almost make him lose touch with reality. Emilia finds fast liquidity relationships in the NET. Desperately seeking her mother`s attention, Emilia`s teenage daughter decides to run away with a guy she met online... Bulgarian theater director meets in youtube British music producer. Will she find out that he is the perfomer of her favorite song?

The film tells the story of two neighbours in a small Bulgarian village and their two sons. Their families live poorly. The ways they earn their daily bread are quite unusual. The film gives a humorous, yet accurate diagnosis of present-day Bulgaria.

When the overbearing wife of the Bulgarian president decides to give a reception in London, the newly appointed ambassador and her protege is given one single task: to persuade Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to attend. While trying to contain the complete anarchy reigning at the Bulgarian embassy, the ambassador jumps at the unique chance to accomplish his impossible mission when, at a lavish reception, the British MP Sir Dean Carver hands him the card of a PR agency with contacts within the highest circles of the British society. What the ambassador doesn’t know though, is that the ‘agency’ actually provides the services of look-alike doubles performing fantasies of a more intimate nature.

The family relations are about to brake down, when parents don’t stop conflicting in the presence of their child, Nousha. The mother’s initiative to take care of the family budget by selling beauty goods will be hardly accepted by the father, who plays small roles at the local theatre. In an attempt to escape from the harsh reality and to solve her problems, Nousha invents her own imaginary world where animals and dinosaurs, birds and people sing, dance and fly. At a certain point, Nousha’s parents invite Madam Dinosaur to take care of the girl. The Madam succeeds in explaining existential problems to Nousha and their relations warm up. The child includes Madam Dinosaur in her imaginary world. Madam Dinosaur and Noucha are singing their dialogues and the integration of 3D and 2D animation makes the dreams more magical.

Mom lived for 94 years in 27 different places. Every time she was in trouble, danger or conflict, she moved to somewhere else. Truth be told, it was history that was chasing her to all those places, during the terrors of the 20th century.

Two nine-year-old mobile-addicts report a flasher to the police even though they never saw him, implicating an innocent man. Three filmmakers meet the only residents of a deserted village: an elderly brother and sister, who have stopped talking to each other many years ago. Retired cleaning women are found raped and strangled in a small town. The DNA leads to a journalist, who was reporting on the murders. In three days after being detained, he is found in his cell, his head in a bucket of water. Was it a suicide or a murder? Every story is true. One of them is real.

Atragicomic story about the strange relationships of a father and his little son. The father – a famous healer – has a sexual intercourse with the young wife of a patient of his, before his son’s eyes. This is the first fling at the taintless world of childhood.

Young French language teacher, Nelly Kodeva, and eminent ‘businessman of the year’, Kosta Keykenov come across each other by accident. Waging an indirect battle for their personal rights, they unleash the spirit of evil in them and destroy a human life with their joint efforts. The story is built around a scandalous phenomenon in Bulgaria that people mostly keep silent about while people in Europe speak of it with more and more openness and anxiety – the route of international trade with infants that passes through our country. Although it gives a trustworthy picture of the whole process, the film focuses much more on the problem’s moral dimensions achieving it with utter authenticity.  

Hayat (14), her father and bedridden grandfather live in a riverside shack near the dangerously dark but breathtakingly beautiful waters of the Bosphorus. Hayat’s father owns a small boat that secures the family’s survival trough a miscellany of not always lawful ventures. Beyond the motion and romance of the water, Hayat’s life is harsh and unrelenting. But Hayat has an instinct for survival. In a world full of losers, Hayat is mistaken for one herself.

Alex and his friends deem the constant fighting with the elite school to be a social riot, while Stephan, the literature teacher, desperately tries to show the guys another solution… Is it possible to convince them?

is a story replete with the passion, dignity and strength of these two women as they battle to survive in one of the most inhospitable places on earth.

One Calorie of Tenderness is a dramatic story about the lives of five women from different generations. One of them is Nadezhda, a divorced woman, who has raised her two children all by herself and has a successful career in science. She is on the verge of a crucial decision to get married for the second time. Her daughter is leaving to take her postgraduate degree and her son enlists the Army. Nadezhda is about to get her PhD degree and to live in peace and harmony with the man she loves. She informs her beloved ones about her decisions and the response is unexpected and dramatic.

One Week Stand is a funny story about three brothers, who leave for the seaside to celebrate the 21st birthday of the eldest brother. On their way they come across interesting people and unusual places. They overcome many obstacles and in a week alone grow up to understand how much they mean to each other.

Living emotional characters, brilliant performance in an original provoking adaptation of the classic Bulgarian short novel by Ivan Vazov. They are Bulgarian emigrants to Romania: proud and freedom-loving rather than desperate vagrants and drifters, scoundrels in the eyes of the narrow-minded, but heroes in the eyes of the oppressed and humiliated. They are outcasts, who would lay down their lives, struggling to liberate their compatriots. is the first Bulgarian four-series TV film filmed in high definition. It was conceived in 2005, after the success of the theatre performance of the same name, staged at the Bulgarian National Theatre. It is a modern interpretation of a literary classic.

Two trains uncontrollably move towards each other within the 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 lives of enemies of the communist regime; get a 20-year 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 three of them are smiling and happy…

Ivan and Plamen are dead set to take revenge upon those, who have done them the greatest harms over the years. They make up a list and start tracking them down. Yet things tend to go wrong…

explores the huge generational gap in Bulgaria and how it stifles communication between people. It tells the story of Manol - a retired general and a loving grandfather - who struggles to accept the changing world around him.

We are all like pieces in a Jigsaw Puzzle, where one piece only fits another, particular piece, so that you get the Picture right. Often, however, fate chooses to place a different piece instead – looking almost the same, yet not quite… and there always remains an empty space in-between. So can fate actually be rewritten?

In 1983, Plamen finds himself in a reformatory school for juvenile criminals. There he meets Ivan, Gudata and Chernio and together they tread the path that leads to thefts and burglaries. With the fall of Communism in 1989 the political system changes dramatically. Still, are these four able to change?