Lyubcho Stefanov

PelĂ­culas

Lullaby
Sound
"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 Bright and Dark Side of Things
Sound
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.
The Last Word
Sound Recordist
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.