Simeon Pironkov

"Nani-na, sleep tight" is the song Bulgarian mothers sing to their little babies. It is obvious that the same song is sung to the little babies in the women's prison in Sliven where the great Bulgarian director Binka Zhelyazkova made two documentaries, the first one named "Nani-Na" /"Lullaby"/ with the incredible true stories of the prisoners in that facility. Immediately forbidden, this movie plus the other one - "Lice i opako" or "The Bright and Dark Side of Things" also made the same year were shown 8 years later when the socialist regime wrongly named as communist one fell apart in 1989. Sadly, Binka Zhelyazkova made no other movie after 1990 until her death in 2011. Deeply insulted by the Bulgarian authorities she decided to decline from cinematographic work, which is something very frustrating indeed, given that all her movies are now evergreen classics.

The fundamental questions of human life about guilt, repentance, and redemption are posed in the two documentary essay - about the grief of the women from Sliven Prison who give birth to their children behind bars. Binka Zhelyazkova diagnoses the public through the stories of her heroines. The film does not appear on the screens after their creation, but only after the changes in 1989.

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. This is the first part of the film trilogy about the events before the creation of the Bulgarian state in the middle of the VII century. Volga Bulgaria is straining under the attacks of the Khazars. Following the testament of his father, the sons of Khan Kubrat looking for a new home for their tribes. The youngest of them - Asparukh, wander 20 years in search of "land forever" for his people and reaches the mouth of the Danube. The film is narrated by captured Byzantine chronicler Belisarius, which should Asparukh in his journeys. Byzantine witnessed the heroic efforts of the Bulgarians to win the land south of the Danube and to create their new country.

Friends of different generations, practicing different professions, spend together their summer holidays at the seaside every year. It is sunny; they look carefree and happy. They know each other very well, they are used to each other. To such an extent, that bore becomes inevitable. It is boredom that incites them to play a dangerous game. The end is dramatic: a young boy gets killed. It is the moment to draw the bottom line. The question is: Isn't the death of the spirit worse than of the body?

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

In order to shorten the completion period of a new work area, the director promises that he will organize a grand concert of famous opera singers at the opening of the new hall. There is an unexpected problem - there is no grand piano. The brigadier sends one of his workers to look for the instrument in the town. He finds himself in a very mysterious new world. After a series of comic situations, he manages to find the grand piano. The grand piano is in the production hall. The order of the day is completed, but is that enough?

Apostol, an architect on this side of forty, meets by chance Bella at a swimming pool on the night of her graduation party.

In 1944 Bulgaria switches sides and joins the war against Germany. The story focuses on the advance of the Bulgarian army through Yugoslavia and Hungary, as well as its internal struggles.

The seven women inmates in Poslednata Duma are imprisoned because they have been associated with partisans opposing the fascist puppet government of the German Nazis. Each of them has the power to save herself if she will betray the others, and each bravely refuses to do so, even though it means they all will die. Despite their grim situation, and the atrocities perpetuated on them as political prisoners, they manage to laugh, and even celebrate a festival.

This is a political picture about the Bulgarian revolutionary Georgi Dimitrov. In 1933 during the Reichstag Fire Trial trumped-up charges of having set the Reichstag on fire were brought against him. At the trial Dimitrov exposed the machinations of the Nazis and turned from a defendant into an accuser. Central to the story is the face-to-face political duel between Dimitrov and Goering. Dimitrov's interactions with ordinary Germans, the memories of his wife Lyuba Ivoshevich, and the meetings with his mother Parashkeva alternate with documentary shooting scenes from the time of Nazi Germany.

April 1945. The Russian sniper Kolya joins the Bulgarian military contingent stationed in a Hungarian village. Kolya meets a Hungarian boy Yanush, with whom he shares his love of poetry. A German sniper is hiding in the woods and every day the death toll of the war grows higher. One day Yanush is killed by the German. Kolya seeks revenge.

In 1945, on the battlefields in Hungary, three Bulgarian soldiers from the reserve have to fight for the liberation of the country. They are totally unprepared for the war and have no desire to take part in the battles. The three reservists are the sad sight and initially their commander wants to send them back to Bulgaria. But their attitude is changed after the witnessed tragedies. Without knowing it, they all turn into heroes.

At the end of 13th and the beginning of the 14th century twenty-four-years old, Prince Svetoslav Terter takes the helm of the state. The young Prince engages in a intricate political game, into getting his way by means of court intrigues, and is forced by circumstances. Svetoslav Terter is remarkably shrewd and consistent. He is perhaps the only head of state at this time to take the liberty of impeaching the primate of the country's church. He tries to rally the neighboring Slav people to a joint resistance to the Turkish conquest. Terter lives through a great personal tragedy. He becomes estranged from his dearest person, Mariya, who is too weak to join him on the difficult road of his choice. (written by Georgi Djulgerov)

A barrage balloon appears unexpectedly over a Bulgarian village during World War II. The startled villagers decide to knock it down with a fusillade yet the balloon flies off to the mountains. The villagers, armed to their teeth, set off after it. But they are not alone in this undertaking...

A man falls in a hole on his walk, he sees another person walking on the same path and makes sure he's not the only one to get injured.

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

A classic noir murder mystery based on the same name detective book by Bogomil Raynov

The first love between two very different characters is the prism through which we are shown the point of view of the film-makers who denounce war and plead for simple human happiness.

During Second World War a beautiful love between two young people burns out against the background of the Nazi reality.

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

Stationed in a secluded Bulgarian village in 1943, Walter - a German Wehrmacht sergeant and artist - lives in almost idyllic distance from the war. Then a transit camp is set up for Jews arriving from Greece. When Ruth, one of the internees, asks Walter to help a pregnant woman, the two form an unlikely bond.

In the 1920s several dozen political prisoners are exiled on a small island in the Black Sea awaiting sentencing. The old sea wolf and adventurer Kostadin (nicknamed Costa Rica) is planning an escape together with а carpenter named Zheko, an idealistic student and a doctor.