October 4 - 7, 2018
PLENAR HALL OF VARNA MUNICIPALITY
SANATORIAL AND HEALTH COMPLEX "KAMCHIA"
While tattooed Katja, her ex-con Kurdish-German husband, Nuri, and their young violin-playing son, Rocco, might seem at first glance like an atypical family, in a few short scenes we come to understand the messy and beautiful reality of their life. So, when sudden tragedy strikes in the form of a neo-Nazi terrorist attack, the impact is all the more profound. Katja now finds herself alone, facing grief and imposing probing from authorities and family alike. Her only relief comes in the form of hard drugs and the thought of what her husband might do in her place. Wrestling between fragile moments of self-destruction and those of unwavering commitment to avenging the deaths of her family, Katja's love for Nuri and Rocco is never far away, and neither is her pain.
„The film is about a young mother whose life centres on her family, which she adores. She is a full-time mother who loses her husband and child out of the blue, and because she can’t deal with her brokenheartedness, she is looking for justice. But it is also a film about family and justice and how malleable and open to interpretation these terms are. At the same time, In the Fade is a thriller that tries to tell a philosophical story in an entertaining way.“
Fatih Akin for Cineuropa.org
A slaughterhouse in Budapest is the setting of a strangely beautiful love story. No sooner does Mária start work as the new quality controller than the whispers begin. At lunch the young woman always chooses a table on her own in the sterile canteen where she sits in silence. She takes her job seriously and adheres strictly to the rules, deducting penalty points for every excessive ounce of fat. Hers is a world that consists of figures and data. Her slightly older boss Endre is also the quiet type. Tentatively, they begin to get to know each other. Recognising their spiritual kinship, they are amazed to discover that they even have the same dreams at night…. A film about the fears of opening up to others, and about how exhilarating it can be when you finally do.
„I think there are so many signs that we have to reinvent our lives on both a small and a large scale. Private lives are so much about how society is constructed, like they’re interdependent. So if you live in conditions that are against living a full life, then you get sick in a way. These are the signs that not everything is OK! So, my two heroes don’t feel right in their skin, and they close themselves off.“
Ildikó Enyedi for TheUpComing.co.uk
Still living under the same roof, the Moscow couple of Boris and Zhenya is in the terrible final stages of a bitter divorce. Under those circumstances, as both have already found new partners, the insults pour down like rain in this toxic familial battle zone, always pivoting around the irresolvable and urgent matter of Alyosha's custody, their 12-year-old only son. Unheard, unloved, and above all, unwanted, the introverted and unhappy boy feels that he is an intolerable burden, however, what his parents don't know is that he can hear every single word. As a result, when Boris and Zhenya finally realize that Alyosha has been missing for nearly two days, it is already too late.
“I’ll change; I won’t repeat the mistakes that led me to this disillusionment; I will begin anew. These are the thoughts of people who blame others for their fiascos. In the end, the only thing you can really change is yourself. Only then will the world around you glow once more; perhaps only a terrible loss can allow this to happen.”
Andrey Zvyagintsev
Submergence is a love story that takes us into the extremely different worlds of our two protagonists, Danielle Flinders (Alicia Vikander) and James More (James McAvoy). They meet by chance in a remote hotel in Normandy where they both prepare for a dangerous mission. They fall in love almost against their will, but soon recognize in each other the love of their lives. When they have to separate, we find out that James works for the British Secret Service. He’s involved in a mission in Somalia to track down a source for suicide bombers infiltrating Europe. Danielle ‘Danny’ Flinders is a bio-mathematician working on a deep sea diving project to support her theory about the origin of life on our planet. Soon, they are worlds apart. James is taken hostage by Jihadist fighters and has no way of contacting Danny, and she has to go down to the bottom of the ocean in her submersible, not even knowing if James is still alive…
„Photographed in sparking detail by Benoît Debie, the Normandy seaside, the parched sands of Somalia, and the undersea dives provide crystalline imagery for Wenders' gorgeously realized adaptation of a harrowing tale about love colliding with uncontrollable forces.“
Pierce Handling, Toronto International Film Festival
Orlando, Florida. Just by Disney Land, in the shadow of the Magic Kingdom, a candy pink cheap motel of the showy name Magic Castle is the place called home by the young and tattooed from head to toe ex-stripper, Halley, and her six-year-old daughter, Moonee. Halley tries to earn money selling illegally perfumes to the tourists, but survives largely on welfare, and the nonstop lack of money makes her angry with the whole world. Financial difficulties mark in fact the life of the most of the Castle’s tenants, but its owner Bobby has a good heart and does his best to help them. Having a soft spot especially for the children, he lets most of their mischiefs go – even the disruptive ones. And most often these are inspired by Moonee, who may curse like her mother, but for whom, being only 6 after all, the rundown candy pink building is the Magic Kingdom itself and also the happiest place in the world…
"Baker's The Florida Project is heartbreaking, but it’s also funny, visually stunning, and beautifully direct in its microscopic focus on one young girl whose sun-drenched, fantastical days in the shadows of Orlando’s Disney World are slowly consumed by the rot of poverty and despair. Anyone who has seen Baker’s previous work, the iPhone-shot tour-de-force that was Tangerine, knows his gift lies in letting his actors (the majority of them first-timers who’ve never stood before a camera) take over the story and then stepping back, letting his leads roam through their worlds."
Luisa Rollenhagen, GQ.com
Cairo, 2011. The Boiling Point. 30 million residents are waiting… waiting for something to happen.
Noredin (Fares Fares) is the everyday corrupt police detective who makes his buck accepting bribes from street vendors and landlords. By routine, he extorts money from the local criminals. Under the influence of drugs and alcohol, he can still function in a system that is on the brink of collapse. One night he is assigned a murder investigation. A singer is found dead at the Nile Hilton. What initially seems to be a “crime of passion” turns into something that concerns the very power elite of Egypt.
“I knew that when I wrote “The Nile Hilton Incident” I was asking for trouble. It’s a little bit like dating a serial killer. But I could have never, in my wildest imagination have known how crazy this production would turn out. I am very glad that no one died. The fiction of “The Nile Hilton Incident” was constantly crashing into reality. At times it scared me, but to be honest, this is why I do this - to make my dreams come true. To me the film is about a city that I love. It’s about the past and the future colliding - and the people that get crushed in the process.“
Tarik Saleh
A film about a man, who has rewritten the history of the world alpinism without supplementary oxygen, without insulin and without mountaineering porters – Boyan Petrov. “3 x 8000” tells from a personal perspective about the conquest in one season of the first 3 of the 10 eight-thousanders, climbed by the legendary alpinist, the terrifying K2 among them. The special edition of the film contains footage from the conquest of the other 7 peaks, too, as well as from the rescue operation at Shishapangma – the peak which has become Boyan’s last refuge and his portal to immortality.
Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand’s second wife - Eleonore Caroline Gasparine Louise, Princess Reuss-Köstritz, has dedicated her life to charity. A nurse at the front and Samaritan, she was the first woman with military cross “For Courage”. She was the German whom the Bulgarian soldiers called “mother”. She was the savior of the Boyana Church. Her life in Bulgaria, her participation in the Balkans wars and why she was for such a long time forgotten are the topics of the film “Eleonore – the Forgotten Queen”
Water Life Saving activity in Bulgaria started in 1901 with the first organized Water Life Saving Command in Ruse. But the first professional Water Life Saving Command in the country began functioning in 1928 in Varna.
Kostadinka Kuneva is a remarkable Bulgarian. She used to be a cleaner in Athens Metro who became a leader of the cleaners’ trade union of Athens.
For her activity in the trade union she was splashed with acid on the Christmas Eve of 2008. In spite of her grave injuries: burnt eyes and esophagus, entirely disfigured face, she survived after 38 operations.
In 2014, with the votes of more than 300 000 Greek citizens, Kostadinka Kuneva was elected for the European Parliament to continue her struggle for the workers’ rights.
Ivan is a charming young man, who works in a post-communist violin factory in Bulgaria named Cremona, the biggest one in Eastern Europe. His greatest dream is to go to the world’s Mecca of violins – the city of Cremona in Italy, the home of Stradivari and Amati, which stands for glamour and exclusivity. The way in between is unexpectedly surprising and marked by dedication, long-lasting traditions and clever business plans. On his way Ivan meets Eva and Christo Marino, who have already established themselves as luthiers in the Italian Cremona, as well as Stoyanka, who has given up her talent and dream of becoming a luthier, and has been doing one and the same violin part for 17 years now in the Bulgarian Cremona factory. Will Ivan find his Cremona or will he go back?
FROM CREMONA TO CREMONA is an emotional journey – to the desired dreamland, to the future of the violin-making art, to the real self of every violin-maker.
The orthodox film THE SAINT-SURGEON acquaints the viewers with the life of one of the greatest saints of 20th century – Saint Luka Voyno-Yasenetsky, archbishop of Simferopol and of the Crimea.
Saint Luka dedicated his life to serving God and all the suffering people. He was among the leading surgeons of last century due to his discoveries in the field of local anesthesia and purulent surgery. Because of the widespread poverty and out of his enormous love for sufferers – as he called his patients, Saint Luka of the Crimea every day spent an hour examining for free those who didn’t have money to pay, and never refused help to anyone in need. People who have known him personally or have felt his help share their really breathtaking stories in the film.
This film tells the true story of Samir, an 8-year-old who had to flee Afghanistan due to war. Samir was found about to freeze to death while he was on his way to Turkey on foot to reach his family in Denmark.
This film is dedicated to hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas who have had to migrate from Myanmar to Bangladesh and have lost their lives in the migration path. In the film, the story of three women who were able to save their lives is included.
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