Under the Same Sky

Colour, 35 mm
Bulgaria, 2003, 89 min
Section: East of the West

Synopsis

A sequestered village on a mountain plateau. Fifteen-year-old Rufie lives with her grandmother, helping her take care of a small farm, and attending her far-off school by bus. After the local mine closed down, her father, Hajredin, left for work in Turkey; he hasn’t been heard from in three years. Everyone says he’ll never return. Rufie suffers from the compassion offered by those around her, so she determines to find her father and prove to all the doubters that he hasn’t abandoned her. She goes to the local Turkish community to find someone to help her. A painful decision awaits – the sacrifice of her braids: only dressed as a boy will they accept her into the group. The refugees set out one winter night on the arduous journey to the mountain border. On the way Rufie befriends Ismet, a boy her age. She falls in love with him but doesn’t dare reveal her identity. The mountainous terrain, deep snow and freezing fog create a precarious situation which this group, so mismatched in age, must overcome...

About the director

Krassimir Krumov (b. 1955, Shumen, Bulgaria) graduated from a French high school in Varna, then studied Bulgarian language and literature in Veliko Tarnovo (1979). He later graduated in film direction from Sophia’s Theatre and Film Academy (VITIZ, 1985). He has written the novels The Drowning Man (Udavnikat) and The Spirit of Crime (Duchat na prestuplenieto), the play Funeral without a Corpse (Pogrebenie bez martvec) and the theoretical study The Poetry of Cinema (Poetika na kinoto). After making the successful films Exitus (Ekzitus, 1989), The Silence (Malchanieto, 1990) and The Forbidden Fruit (Zabraneniat plod, 1994) he lectured at the Berlin Academy for Cinema and Television (1994). Nearly ten years later Krumov returned with another feature, Under the Same Sky (Pod edno nebe, 2003).