Original title: Women Do Cry
Genre: Drama
Director: Vesela Kazakova
Country: Bulgaria, France
Year of production: 2021
Czas: 107 min
Awards and nominations:
2021 Cork International Film Festival: Youth Jury Award
2021 Dunav Film Fest: Best Directing
2021 Golden Rose Bulgarian Feature Film Festival: Acting Team Achievement
Directors Vesela Kazakova and Mina Mileva take us to Sofia, Bulgaria to show us the lives of women in a conservative society. While the country is a scene of fight for law change, war against gender politics, and anti-LGBTQ+ protests, women from one family experience their own traumas. 19-year-old Sofia (played by Maria Bakalova) starts a romance with a married man. He learns that he’s HIV positive and soon she hears the same diagnosis. She turns to her older sister Lora (Ralitsa Stoyanova) for help. Lora works at construction sites to provide for her family. Other women, coping with domestic violence, misogynism, and homophobia, gather around the sisters. Veronica (Bilyana Kazakova) brings up her small child by herself while Yoana (Vesela Kazakova) faces increasing violence against non-heterosexual people.
Kazakova and Mileva intertwine extremely difficult experiences of their female characters to tell a universal story of women which unfortunately is true not only in Bulgaria, but also in different parts of the world. But this drama, which stays with a viewer long after the screening, is filled with hope. It comes from the women’s strength. They create and dominate the film. It’s also a chance to look at Maria Bakalova from a different perspective. She gained recognition thanks to her role in the scandalous “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”. Her new film proves she works hard to evolve as an actress.
Author: Magdalena Drozdek
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Vesela Kazakova is a Bulgarian actress, screenwriter, director, and producer. She played her first meaningful role in “List otbrulen” (2002) for which she won the Nevena Kokanova Award for best young actress at Golden Rose Feature Film Festival in Varna. In 2008 a documentary she had made with Mina Mileva called “Uncle Tony, Three Fools and the Secret Service” was widely talked about. The film was shown at festivals in Warsaw, Sarajevo, and Cairo. The American Film Institute recognised it as one of the best European films of 2014. Kazakova and Mileva’s next collaboration, “Cat in the Wall”, was also a success. The film was screened at Locarno Film Festival and got the FIRPESCI Award at Warsaw International Film Festival.
Projekt sfinansowany przez