Poli Angelova

Romania, 1989. The twilight of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s dictatorship. In a small, isolated town, Maria, a ten-year-old girl, is the last person to witness her sister disappearing before her eyes. Torn apart by the loss, she tries to make sense of a new, terrifying reality. Can she summon the courage to grow up?

With formal rigour and subtly playing with genre, body and soul, this story of knots and liberation follows Lilian, who is as inscrutable as her desires, constrained by a pact of celibacy. When her father dies, she returns to the place of her past.

In rural Macedonia, Dora, a middle-aged doctor, has built her life around duty – to her distant husband, troubled daughter, and ailing mother. When an injured young woman is brought into her home, caring for her awakens a desire Dora has suppressed for decades. Their growing intimacy becomes a secret affair, slowly destabilising the life she has worked so hard to preserve.

Vasil has just lost his long-time partner in life, his wife Ivanka. When a woman at her funeral proclaims that the dead woman called her cellphone, Vasil seeks out the help of a well-known psychic in order to try to contact his wife. His son Pavel tries to bring him to his senses, but Vasil stubbornly insists on doing things his own way… Following the internationally successful The Lesson and Glory, Grozeva and Valchanov return with an intimate family drama about the difficulties of connecting with those close to us. As the picture slowly gathers momentum, its story unfolds many of the carefully arranged absurd or comic situations typical for the Bulgarian filmmaking duo.

Ilie, a small-town police chief, wants to build a modest comfortable life for himself, but ends up making the wrong choices. Middle-aged and alienated, he feels the need to be a part of something - to build an orchard, even a home. Although dubious things happen in the village, Ilie only sees what suits him. The moment he gets involved in the village marks the beginning of his collapse. In a vacuum of solutions, he tries to be what he has never been before: the justice seeker who arrests everyone guilty.

Famous film director Levent (45), the honorary guest of Soke Film Festival from Istanbul, is completely unaware of Aliye (25), a housekeeper at the hotel where he is staying. However, Aliye, who is trying to tailor a new life story for herself, knows Levent and his films very well. Aliye's intriguing story brings together these two distant people with completely different lives. Now, they have to choose between reality and fiction.

Based on a true story. 1996, open sea. During his shift on a transatlantic ship’s deck, Joel, a religious Filipino sailor, discovers Dumitru, a Romanian stowaway hidden between some containers. If he is spotted by the Taiwanese officers running the vessel, Dumitru is at risk to be thrown overboard. Joel decides to hide him, as a sign of his gratitude towards God. Soon, a dangerous cat and mouse game begins. When his crew, his own friends, even God itself start to turn their backs on him, Joel learns that he has to face his cruel destiny alone.

An honest, hard-working schoolteacher in a small Bulgarian town is driven to desperate measures to avoid financial ruin.