Crystal Globe contenders return to KVIFF competition

The Crystal Globe Competition today welcomes back Bulgarian directing duo Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, whose film The Father won the competition in 2019. This year, they return with Black Money for White Nights. Cypriot producer and director Tonia Mishiali also returns to KVIFF after presenting her debut Pause in the East of the West competition in 2018. She now continues her trilogy exploring the lives of women with The Lion at My Back, which will have its world premiere in the Grand Hall at 7:30 p.m.

A couple in their sixties secretly saves bribe money to fulfil their lifelong dream, but when a travel scam wipes out their savings, buried family conflicts and moral compromises rise to the surface. A sharply observed tragicomedy about ordinary people trapped between corruption, family loyalty and the collapse of moral certainty, Black Money for White Nights, will have its world premiere in the Grand Hall at 5 p.m.

“Our film was born out of a moment when words lost their meaning and moral gravity seemed to collapse — when cynicism passed for patriotism, and lies were called faith. In Bulgaria, a generation that once carried the promise of change became an echo of propaganda, renaming corruption ‘survival’ and submission ‘tradition’,” say Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov.

“The film is not a protest, but an attempt to understand how this distortion feels from the inside. Marina and Gosha are not villains or heroes. They pray, love, and dream, yet live in a world where deceit has become a way of breathing. Caught between survival and complicity, their quiet downfall mirrors a broader moral erosion shaping private lives and entire societies,” say the filmmakers, describing their tragicomedy as one in which tenderness and decay, absurdity and fate coexist in the same frame.

The second Crystal Globe contender of the day, The Lion at My Back, follows a teenage asylum seeker from Senegal and an adult Cypriot woman recovering from drug addiction. Both are searching for a fresh start, and their shared struggles forge an unexpected bond.

“When I was a child, a war broke out and my family and I had to flee our home. That early displacement stayed with me since. Some years ago, I became close to many immigrant African women. Their resilience resonated deeply with me. As a mother to a teenage daughter, I believe there is a special, yet complex, bond between mothers and daughters. So I wanted to find a way to put these two deeply personal issues on film, and this is how the story of this unlikely alliance was born,” says Tonia Mishiali about her film, shot on 16mm with a handheld camera, which celebrates female resilience and solidarity.