Touched by God

Colour, 35mm
Bulgaria/France, 2001, 118 min
Section: Official Selection - Competition

Synopsis

Kesten is a picturesque village on the border between Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece. A French sociologist named Franćois Denis comes to the village to study the risk of ethnic conflict in this part of the Balkans. He finds out that in a place situated only 100 kilometres from Kosovo there are Muslims and Christians capable of living in peace just as they have for hundreds of years. But what is far more interesting to this western visitor is meeting the local inhabitants: Vladimír, who fills all municipal posts from mayor to postmaster, a poet whose verse has never been published and who longs to see Rossellini’s The Greatest Love one last time, and a smuggler who is willing to do anything for his mentally disabled brother. It’s a fascinating and absurd, though harmonious, world where anything can happen – where even wine has flowed from the water taps. . . .

About the director

Peter Popzlatev (b. 1953, Bulgaria) graduated from Paris’s Institut Louis LumiŹre (1978) after studying at the Sorbonne. He then returned to Bulgaria where at first he worked as assistant director to Lubomir Kharlandiev and then wrote for television. He has made many documentaries (Difficult Choice – awarded at Nyon and the Bulgarian Critics’ Prize, Father in Bronze, Trial, Stranger – Special Jury Prize at Plovdiv, and others). His feature film debut, I, Countess (1989), was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize at the Varna IFF, the Jury Prize at Milan, the Silver Dolphin at the festival in Troia, and the Grand Prize at the festival in Angers. In 1993 he shot his second feature film, Something in the Air.