Stefan Valdobrev

After the fall of the Berlin wall, now in his old age, the composer Edward Kazasyan discovers that his late wife, the singer Lia Ivanova, who survived communist labor camps, was forced to work for the secret services. Their dossiers in the State Security archives and her diary from childhood reveal the complicated fate of the singer, who strove the conquer the big stage while juggling a "second life" imposed on her by the system. Torn by doubts that his life was contrived and false, he once again relives their love and career in his loneliness, trying to find his place in this living puzzle.

This is the story of Mityo and his son Vasko, who live in a poor area, near to the Bulgarian-Turkish-Greek Border. Mityo had lost everything that has mattered to him – his wife, his work, the confidence of his son, Vasko. In order to get him back, Mityo has to find forgiveness and pay for his sin, done 25 years ago.

This is a film about love, ten bottles of vodka and a town that must sink. Because when hope is gone, Miracle is the last resort.

Filmed over a number of years, David Vondráček’s powerful documentary records the lives of Jan and Jana, a homeless couple who find refuge in a cemetery in the Prague borough of Strašnice. Living on food from garbage containers and trading the books and porn magazines they find there, they nonetheless live lives of independence, love and humour. Jana, a former prostitute, tries to visit her daughter while Jan visits his aged mother after many years, but both fail to re-establish links with their past. Through identification with their everyday world, Vondráček reaches the human reality and complexity beneath the surface, a world not so different from that of the supposedly successful. Eventually, they are expelled from their temporary home with heartbreaking consequences. Vondráček’s award-winning documentary reveals the breadth of experience – even vibrancy – surviving in the world of the dispossessed.

Following the quest of a man's awkward dream to be named after his favorite football club, the film director brings us close to a Bulgarian builder and his memorable mates, and creates a moving portrait of contemporary Bulgaria with its bewildered and confused people, so disappointed by the life in the country that they migrate to their own substitute reality. The journey starts in Svishtov, a small town on the bank of the river Danube, tells the story of the protagonist's struggle with the authorities, leads us all the way to Old Trafford Stadium, where he meets his idol, the Manchester United top-striker Dimitar Berbatov, and ends up back home, raising questions about identity, about who we are and who we want to be.

Set in socialist Yugoslavia in 1986, a humble and diligent factory worker falls into a 10-year shock right at his working place. He wakes up from coma in hospital in 1996 capitalist Slovenia, only to find out that he's left without job as being redundant.

The film tells the story of two neighbors 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.

Tras un accidente de coche, un joven búlgaro llamado Alex no puede recordar ni siquiera su nombre. Para curar su amnesia, su abuelo Bai Dan se marcha a Alemania y le organiza a su nieto un viaje espiritual, cuyo destino es su país de origen y, por tanto, el pasado. En distintos lugares, momentos y medios de transporte, cruzando media Europa, juegan al backgammon, el juego más sencillo y sin embargo el más complejo de todos. El juego lleva a Alex a recordar quién es y simboliza la historia. El destino es el dado que tenemos en nuestras manos y la vida es un juego a medio camino entre la suerte y la habilidad. Seleccionada por Bulgaria como candidada al Oscar 2010 en la categoría de película de habla no inglesa.

Tras un accidente de coche, un joven búlgaro llamado Alex no puede recordar ni siquiera su nombre. Para curar su amnesia, su abuelo Bai Dan se marcha a Alemania y le organiza a su nieto un viaje espiritual, cuyo destino es su país de origen y, por tanto, el pasado. En distintos lugares, momentos y medios de transporte, cruzando media Europa, juegan al backgammon, el juego más sencillo y sin embargo el más complejo de todos. El juego lleva a Alex a recordar quién es y simboliza la historia. El destino es el dado que tenemos en nuestras manos y la vida es un juego a medio camino entre la suerte y la habilidad. Seleccionada por Bulgaria como candidada al Oscar 2010 en la categoría de película de habla no inglesa.

Two trains uncontrollably move towards each other within 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 live of enemies of the communist regime; get a 20-years 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 tree of them are smiling and happy.

High in the mountains of Macedonia a team of young film makers are making a documentary about Katerina Vandeva - a descendant of an ancient and very famous family. Several former state and party functionaries interfere in the filmmaking in the hopes of manipulating Katerina's confessions for their own purposes. Nikola, the director, and his friends have to make the choice - whether to compromise with their consciences and their art, (as normally happens here in the Balkans), or whether to preserve Katerina's message.