Living Chimneys

A story about a writer and a young poetess

Inspector Andreev arrives in a small provincial town. He starts digging through his predecessor's unsolved case, which involves certain big shots in town.

Early 20th century. This is an era of seething passions, aspirations for freedom and national self-identification. Uprising are incited, blood is shed. The picture features national leaders who become heroes as early as in their lifetime. The protagonist is rank-and-file Macedonian who is unwittingly swept by the events. Later, it was his conscious choice. He was a witness of changes, crucial for the nation. He comes across legendary personalities. He gets enchanted and disappointed. He is seeking for the right answers, rethinks what he saw and experienced to tell his story in his simple, but candid and wise words of his own.

The stories of three men get tangled up in the life of the young Gipsy called Magdalena - that of the Bulgarian Lilyanin, who starts off as a fighter for brotherhood but turns into a persecutor of the Gypsies; the story of the savage Halibryamov, who knows the language of animals, but does not speak any human tongue; the story of a rich Gypsy called Kanyo who wants but does not dare to break with the lot of his kin, and story of a Frenchman in a wheelchair who comes to realize that money cannot buy everything. Magic alone can unravel this knot of destinies... And then, there is the Gypsy tale of the black swallow and how it came to be.

In the 17th century, a Bulgarian Christian region is selected by the Ottoman rulers to serve as an example of conversion to Islam. A Janissary who was kidnapped from the village as a boy is sent to force the reluctant inhabitants to convert. The Turkish governor seeks a peaceful solution, but ultimately torture, violence, and rebellion break out.

Set in the thirties, a sensitive peasant boy who is caught in the vice of cruel military machine. From the start his masters treat him as an inanimate object, which can change hands without so much as a second thought. This is a story about human dignity in a society resting on violence and subordination.

The action takes place during the socialist period in Bulgaria. The central character, nicknamed the Cock is an artistic personality, a man of strong character known as the king of the pickpockets. His keen sense of personal freedom comes up against the universally accepted norms of behavior. The Cock likes a game, adventure and danger, while socialist society needs obedience. The Cock makes a stand against this order; he does not want to play his games according to rules. He is telling his story of two decades: his imprisonment and his love affairs.

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.

There were times when stealing girls in these lands has been a worthy vocation, was a habit and a sort of custom in Bulgaria. Only the strongest and most experienced men took the profession up. A young and brave Bulgarian highlander was given the job to bring, no matter how, a certain beautiful girl to be married to somebody.

This is a story of strange, impossible, inexplicable love between a Muslim Turk woman and a non-Muslim Bulgarian man. Ivan (the Bulgarian) is a pure and romantic young fellow, who gets caught up in the so-called "regeneration process" (when ethnic Turks' names were forcibly changed to Bulgarian ones). He is responsible for the official seals, which is required to issue the new identity documents after the forced name changes. The schoolteacher Ayten tries to steal the seals, thinking that this way she can slow down the ethnic genocide. Their unexpected and unusual meeting brings these two characters together and makes them fell close, forcing Ivan to take a fateful decision -he must either "rename" Ayten, or face the consequences if he does not.

In this comedy, a mathematician is so bored and burnt-out with his career that he rebels, first by crawling under a table during an interminable faculty meeting and then by throwing his telephone away, locking his wife out of their apartment, and running off on his own. At this point, the comedy takes a turn when the rebellious mathematician follows a strange wheel and meets a goatherd who shelters him in his humble abode. Events change from a bit odd to totally bizarre as the mathematician continues on his journey of escape.

The trumpet player, Jonah, moves into the remains of his grandfather's house near where the treasure is hidden. In a tunnel under the house he finds a stone with a bird engraved on it and a map with an inscription in Arabic: "To have a house of gold, fall onto the sky and find the twin!" A copy of the same map brings Rumba and Emma to the same place. Rumba is Bulgarian and a passionate treasure-hunter. His wife is American and studies Bulgarian folklore as a way to fight globalization. Rumba wants to buy Jonah's property so he can find the treasure.