A concert to celebrate Bulgaria joining the EU is being planned at the Embassy in London and it is the job of VARADIN, the new ambassador, to ensure the Queen attends. But with corrupt staff, criminal gangs operating out of the kitchen, falling in love with a stripper and a little misunderstanding with a PR firm that provides look-alike royalties - his simple task turns into a chaotic nightmare.
One of the most ambitious Bulgarian projects in recent years, Heights is an adaptation of Milen Ruskov's novel of the same name, published in 2011. The film explores the Bulgarian realities of the 1870s a few years before the war, that would liberate the country from the Ottoman occupation. Directed by Victor Bojinov and adapted by Neli Dimitrova, the story follows Gicho a young man in a revolutionary group led by Dimitar Obshti, a real-life revolutionary fighting against the Turks. After a successful train robbery Obshti entrust Gicho with a special mission: to deliver a letter to Vasil Levski, the country's most famous freedom fighter, now considered hero and dubbed The Apostle of Freedom.
In a dying town in Serbia daydreamer Marko is on the verge of divorce from the love of his life, Ljubinka. When an old communist-era monument is removed from the Main Square, he comes up with the idea to build a monument to Michael Jackson in order to save his town and seduce his wife again. But the town’s mayor has his own plans.
What is like to be a widowed old man in a small town where every single day is the same like the previous? And what will happen when the grandson that man haven't seen in 10 years will knock on his door and suddenly brake all of his routines?
Lidija's busy double life as a food box seller and drug dealer takes a dangerous turn when a fatal mistake threatens her relationship with her drug lord, endangers her daughter's life and risks exposing her to Nikola, her policeman husband.
A group of problematic, abandoned teenagers from a Juvenile Adoption Centre share their destiny on the margins of the society, holding only on the teachings of their caring educator about the true values of life. But a series of tragic events that culminate with the death of one of the youngsters by the hand of a police inspector, will crush their illusions for a normal future in a world that stigmatizes them as outcasts. Incited by the awakening words of the broken educator and the emerging, ferocious leader of the pack, the boys take the path of revenge, which soon escalates into a spiral of violence and takes them deep into the catacombs of the criminal underworld.
A young priest, who has devoted his life to the church and has sworn an oath of celibacy, is tempted to break his vows as the world is about to end. His temptation is modest, as he only wants to have a little taste of an everyday life, of the everyday people in an everyday society, before the world ends.
Ten-year-old Jovan was born with partial cerebral palsy. Shy, self-conscious and without many friends, he often escapes in his imagination to a place where he is a crime-fighting superhero not limited by his own body. His world shifts when a new girl arrives in his class. Milica, not intimidated by much, chooses the seat next to Jovan and immediately enlists him to help her free her father from his girlfriend, whom she is convinced is a witch who has placed her father under a spell.
After an attempt of a suicide of a 11 year old bullied kid, Stela "a shepherd dog" is the only one that can get through him and restore his faith in life.
Vera is a middle-aged sign language interpreter, whose life is disrupted by her husband's suicide who has to face the raw reality of going against the deep-seated gender issues of our times.
Alek is a 10 year old autistic child. During a family day at the park, Alek disappears. He follows a very tall man that only he can see. Alek walks towards a lake like hypnotised. We hear his parents calling his name while he is only a step away from the water.
The thread that connects the story is the woman, she stays from the beginning to the end. The years of solitude, drawn in the wrinkles on her face, weigh like lead. She, the woman, needs to move on with her life, she needs to be patient, reconciled and hopeful.
Slovenian director Petra Seliskar investigates the role of ideology in her personal family history by means of interviews with her paternal grandfather, her Macedonian boyfriend Brand's maternal grandmother and his Cuban grandmother on his father's side. Illustrated by archive footage and home movies, her voice-over describes her family's personal story, Yugoslavia under Tito, and the recent war, accompanied by some particularly shocking footage. The nature shots and the alternation of classical, popular and revolutionary music occasionally lend the stories a light-hearted tone.
Talented people like artists or writers who stayed have one choice only: work as seamstresses. Eriela, Beti and Vesna are seamstresses in the small town of Štip. If they wanted to afford one of their handmade blouses, it would cost them a months salary. While the women are fully employed, their men are less fortunate and find themselves unemployed after the collapse of communism. A situation with a lot of potential conflict for the couples. The men find it hard to be dependent financially on their women, when they used to proudly provide for the family.
A seven-storey building in the centre of Tetovo, a city in the west of Macedonia, stands like a border between the part of the city where the Macedonian population lives and the other where the Albanian population lives. Albanians, Macedonians, Roma, Roma, Vlachs, Hungarians, Serbs and Bosnians have all lived in the same building for years and are all in some kind of silent conflict with each other, though they still lead their lives in common as neighbours.
