2007

Anatoly lives with his mother near a coalmine. The miners come to eat in her pub at midday. Sometimes, when another drunk admirer starts kicking up a row outside the window, he protectively places himself in front of his mother. He's unsure what he wants to do with his life, spends hours daydreaming on his bed or cycling through the fields. When he finds himself being swindled again by brisk Maragita at the market, all he can do is gaze at her from afar. But everything has its time, and at some point Anatoly takes the initiative. A quiet and touching tale of coming of age.

Somewhere at the end of the world, in a small village by the sea, several men and women driven away by civilization’s cruelty and vanity have found their temporary wharf. Here they meet love, jealousy, betrayal, devotion, and mainly human goodness. Here they ascertain their own personalities and systems of values, and make their choices. The screenplay is based on Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" but the story takes place here and now. The film inspires us to smile with a look of sympathy for those intellectuals around us.

Three young girls try to flee from the unemployment in their own city: they arrive in the capital city of Sofia to look for a job and a better future. The three of them try to survive, fighting a hostile reality which threatens to  break their innocent and bright ideas of life, imposing on them its vicious  morality. One of the girls does break and becomes the love-toy of a pimp.  Prompted by her betrayal, the second one gets involved into a love triangle  and attempts suicide. The third girl puts up a struggle for her closest  friends’ redemption. A story of love, friendship and courage.

Remarkably beautiful to watch and listen to, is a fable come vividly to life. It also exerts a formidable pull on the heartstrings throughout all its plot twists. Ruben is a young man who, along with his mother and assorted household staff, inhabits a large estate in the country sometime in the late nineteenth century. Ruben cannot see, and he is also rapaciously bloody-minded, ruling the household through fierce tantrums and intimidation. This frustrating state of affairs comes to a head upon the arrival of Marie, a pale-as-snow, slightly odd-looking older woman who is just as strong-willed as Ruben. She refuses to become embroiled in his power struggles, as she has been hired to read to him and she loves books more than anything else. It is the perfect job for Marie. Emotionally scarred by a childhood trauma, she believes herself to be grotesque, so a blind employer relieves her of self-consciousness. Ruben doesn't love anyone or anything until Marie's quiet insight into his soul provokes an affection for her stronger than anything he has ever felt before. In the bleak winter months, the two misunderstood outsiders find each other. Into their unlikely idyll swoops a doctor who insists that Ruben's eyesight can be restored through a new surgical procedure. Ruben wants the operation to be able to finally see his true iove and the world around her, but Marie panics, convinced that Ruben will discover she is ugly and her only love will be destroyed.