The Short Straw

A conversation with the great Bulgarian writer and playwright Yordan Radichkov about traditions, religion, folk psychology, cinema and theater and the relations between people.

A young sculptor has been preparing his first exhibition for years. In the autumn of 1962 it becomes a fact. The show provokes a scandal in the society.

A nurse traffics the ID cards of demented patients on the black market of identity theft. Driven by easy cash, and an addiction to morphine, she struggles to keep tabs on her emotional void, and a growing fear of punishment.

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.