"BULGARIAN CINEMATOGRAPHY" "BOYANA FILM STUDIOS" "SREDETZ CREATIVE GROUP 1979" "THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER'S PATENT LEATHER SHOES" "Director of Photography RADOSLAV SPASOV" "Artist GEORGUI TODOROV" "Costume Designer ELENA DEMYAKOVA" "Music KIRIL DONCHEV" "Edited by ERMA POPOVA RODEZIA MILINA" "Second Unit Director MALINA PETROVA" "Sound IVAN VENTSISLAVOV" "MONE Borislav Tsankov" "GRANDFATHER DOBRIN Ivan Stoichkov" "GRANDMOTHER SLAVAH Slavka Ankova" "BRIDE Emilia Mirinska" "BLACK UNCLE Nikolai Velichkov" "Editors SVOBODA BACHVAROVA MICHAIL KIRKOV" "Line producers ZDRAVKO VATEV HRISTO BUMBOVSKI" "Script and director RANGEL VALCHANOV" "The sequence with myself in front of the Buckingham Palace was shot last summer." "But it happened 17 years ago." "I stood by the same iron fence then and watched the changing of the guard," "dazed by the splendor of that impressive Great Britain, that seemed eternal with her traditions." "And as I was gaping," "I pressed the wrong button "Play" instead of "Rec"." "And this song popped up, this harvest song..." "Chance?" "Probably!" "A chance but for so many years now this song incessantly comes back into my mind and together with it my long forgotten aunts." "Their distant voices took me back to my little country." "To my village... a long time ago..." "Besides smells the first lasting memories were the constant questions about everything." "The plain - why was it so flat?" "The grass - why was it green?" "Mum - why is she bad when she isn't good?" "Or the sparrow - Don't stare - jump into this trap?" "The first painful lessons too and the sad conclusions about the birds in the hand and in the bush." "Most numerous were the memories based on exaggerations." "A simple pond was a lake, the lake was a huge sea." "So after a shower-just and ordinary one- the village turned into Venice." "And we were stopped from school for a long time," "because the desks were swept away by the river." "Later the sea suddenly disappeared" "It disappeared just as it has appeared." "The miracle left here shows that we once had a sea." "These are my relatives - hundreds of them." "That one with the copper is Granny Slavah." "That's her again!" "Little Black Uncle." "Grandpa Dobrin's hands Aunt Vassilka's..." "Aunt Vena's, Stana's..." "My father." "Now don't be scared!" "It's all right." "It's all right, we can eat it!" "Don't you see it's all poisoned and we're to eat it!" "Don't you see it's no good!" "It's because of the leeches it's bad." "To poison my family!" "Never!" "Don't even think about this!" "Throw it!" "Throw it away, women.." "We spent the whole day catching it!" "Why do they throw it in the street?" "And as it's a street it has to be a street." "Now Grandma Slavah has stolen a fish!" "Dogs don't eat fish." "But that moonlit night they did." "And had a feast..." "All of us hundred relatives slept in one room." "On top of each other." "After a time they'd push us children into the middle of the room." "Not to interfere with various things." "So that they could talk..." "Grandpa's coughing." "Why?" "What's he hiding?" "They don't talk at the back anyway." "Plague on you!" "Who told you to burn the house down?" "I ask you..." "Get out of here!" "Granny wants to set the house on fire and Grandpa's saving it." "We were used to this scene, it happened every Friday." "We children felt a pleasant fear knowing that Grandpa would save us." "This memory's linked with "why?"." "Why does Granny want to burn the house so that we all burn?" "When you used to come back from the army - one child and one more..." "But you can't any more!" " You dirty bitch!" "God, he'll kill me!" "I was killed, oh, God, I was killed!" "On Fridays Grandma used to go to the field." "She picked various herbs from under the snow and used to sell them to Embassies for empty bottles." "Not money, only bottles." "She used to bring them to the village and exchange them for various coins of different ages." "She used to say:" ""When I grow old who knows which money will be good?"" "Sleep, my baby, sleep!" "It was dark because the dog ate my eye." "That's it!" " That was it but I was proud and bandaged, and my relatives fainted with horror." "Only little Black Uncle didn't, but later I any way gouged out both his eyes for another thing." "The dog ran away ashamed because he ate me up for no reason." "And so I decided:" "I won't talk to you any more!" "And if this isn't a lie...!" "Now it'll die, it's guilty!" "Grandpa used to say:" ""Learn from a dog and not from a man"." "Of course my eye got well all of a sudden." "Too bad the dog died of shame, too bad..." "It's a holiday today!" "My youngest Black Uncle's getting married." "So Grandpa and Granny had to seat together." "Grandpa, why didn't you give Uncle any money?" "Who put so much salt?" "You all hung around the fire - it's your doing!" "Look, a tear!" "Mum!" "Whenever you're having fun somebody's bound to box your ears." "God!" "What happened?" " I died - that's what happened!" "If only I could be dead for the rest of my life!" "You're sorry, eh?" "Why do you beat me then, why?" "I'll grow up and I'll kill you like a leech." "It came to my mind and I said it." "I'll grow up and I'll kill you like a leech." "You want some more?" "Some more, ah?" "But if I die again, then you'll see!" "Come on, eat now!" "Black Uncle's getting married." "That's why they've forgotten about you." "If you only knew how lovely and white my new aunt is!" "You'll eat here for they may kill you in the yard!" "Mum nearly killed me before." "At a wedding, they fight, kill and eat, you understand this?" "Look!" "They're shouting 'cause they've had enough." "If only there were a wedding every day!" "Yes, but who'd take you out grazing?" "I know a wedding can't graze!" "What if the wedding could graze..." "Granny Slavah had stolen something again!" "This chest's everything for Granny." "She hides money, brandy, sugar in it." "And on this very chest long time ago when Grandpa used to come back from war..." "God!" "So many children!" "Who's going to look after them!" "?" "God's punishment!" "?" "Twenty-two, twenty-three..." "What?" "What is it?" "You're crazy or what?" "Go back to your homes." "War is over." "Go back and look after your children!" ""And so the war ended to our great surprise, that dangerous war." "First World War, European one." "There were many dead... fallen, dead, dead and wounded" "on these battlefields for seven long years..." "Everybody's rejoicing, kissing, heading for home to see little children," "to wipe a bride's tears, their bride's tears, and comfort them."" "Go to..." "You, devil, you've spilt the flour!" "Out!" "Off with you!" "Get off my way!" "I'm not on your way, I'm on the oven's way!" "You still hate me." "I hate you too!" "Let it go, you, little devil!" "Granny, why do you steal?" "Off with you, you, brute!" "Thief!" "If he's bad and dies let him turn into a black bird." "If the murderer's bad and they shoot him let'im turn into two black birds!" "One and two makes three." "How strange!" "Somebody was murdered, but nobody cried!" "See, Granny is laughing..." "Strange!" "May be this murder took place some other time, at another wedding!" "?" "I seem to have got mixed up." "Yeah, that's it." "I wish that was it." "I wish these songs and dances never end and they never stop kissing their hands." "And for auntie to be a bride forever, with flowers and gold coins on her head." ""Stoyan was taken in the army at the Turkish border." "But since his bride is still young he is sorry to leave her." "He's even sorrier to take her along..."" "Mone, are you asleep?" "No, I was looking at the war." "To your health!" "To your health, young man!" "Hey man, cheers!" "Be healthy and strong, become a man like me!" "Have a little!" " I won't." "Let's see whether you're man or not." "Have some, then you'll sing a song." "Cheers!" " Let's see how you drink!" "Bravo!" "Who does he take after?" " I don't know." "Laugh if you want to." "But since I'm a man, listen carefully." "And three... and four..." ""A prisoner's mother is weeping in front of Sofia's City Prison..." "And as she weeps, she laments:" "Come out, my son, my son, Dimiter!"" "Why aren't you laughing now!" ""A voice is heard through the thick walls:" "I cannot come out, oh mother, dear." "The damned Director has locked me up!"" "I felt sorry and proud, to have made these old people cry with my song." "You were the soldier in the song!" "This wedding has no end, I'm sick of it!" "I had promised to gouge out both your eyes, remember?" "Take this!" "Where did the wedding disappear?" "Has auntie gone too?" "Thank God, the wedding's here!" "They're drawing water from the well for auntie,not for uncle,but for auntie!" "To water the street for her health,for..." "What are you looking at me for?" "I gouged out both your eyes." "Auntie!" "White auntie..." "At last Granny set the house on fire and all my relatives burned with it, and my white auntie with them." "Grandpa, say something!" "Grandpa!" "My lovely little auntie burned out!" "Auntie..." "Grandpa!" "Grandpa!" "Say something!" "Say anything you want!" "Auntie,is that you?" "How did you come in?" "Are you going to bed?" "Good night, then." ""So the house was burned." "And with it" "all my relatives turned to ashes." "Only Mone was left," "poor little orphan, young and miserable." "All alone he came to the big city of Sofia" "to fetch black shoes, beautiful patent leather shoes!"" "Buy the song-book to read what happened to the poor orphan." "Take it!" "Buy this song-book!" ""What miracle has happened in the big city of Sofia that everyone's so excited?" "Everyone's shouting and singing 'cause a new war's beginning, a war with many bells." "Bells in golden domes." "A general draws his sword..." "and asks his army:" ""Shall we all go to war?" "We will, of course we will!"" "And again he draws his sword..." "Do you want to go to war?" "We want, of course we do!" "And Mone was very happy that he'd go to war too, in his patent leather shoes, lovely patent leather shoes." "Back he went to his village to tell his Grandpa the story of the miracle that had happened in the big city of Sofia."" "And what a war it was!" "When they started shooting..." "And the soldiers from Sofia shouted ow, ow." "Grandpa, if you'd just seen the gold church!" "Look, eh!" "And there was a boot as big as a house, and small ones to fit a mouse." "There were people driving cars, and the women were with bare backs, and the men held their hands." "It seems that while I was away Grandpa had died for he kept quiet with open eyes." "And I had gone nowhere." "And the war was only a song I thought of, just to bring Grandpa back to life." "To make him say something, no matter what." "A hundred years must've passed because Grandpa shrank." "Become as big as I was." "And because he was still silent" "I knew that I had to bury him, even more since today's Sunday." "Look, Granny's still alive, she surely came to steal Grandpa." "Granny!" "Granny!" "Granny!" "Only the goat and I went to the funeral." "The whole village was at a wedding and so much the better." "I'd have been ashamed of people for Grandpa has shrunk so much." "Auntie, is that you?" "Grandpa died, that's it." "Take some so that God may let his soul rest in peace." "I went to Sofia." "I went to war too." "But it's a pity Grandpa died!" "But... he... was like that for a hundred years." "Auntie!" "I want to tell you..." "Auntie, come back, Auntie!" ""Well, there's no mountain higher than Vitosha." "Well, there's no river deeper than Iskar." "Well, there's no city bigger than Sofia." "Well, there's no place better than ours." "There isn't but there isn't Auntie either." "There isn't Grandpa!" "I'll wait for them here till I grow old." "Well, that's all." "Just a song, but the past comes and goes, comes and goes..." "The memories of a child, that wonderful army I was telling you about." "Always ready to help when we're threatened." "And what's there that doesn't threaten us!"