Best Bulgarian documentary movies

The Second Liberation (2021)

The Soviet occupation of Bulgaria (1944-1947) causing the greatest political, financial and moral turning point in the new Bulgarian history.

Stories for Murders (1993)

A father killed his son. In a state of alcoholic delirium, a young man murdered his friend. A 21 year-old boy shot a policeman. Faced with their death sentence, they tell about what happens with them at the moment when they are between death and ... death.

Balkan Melody (2012)

What Swiss director Stefan Schweitert did for accordion music and for yodeling (Accordion Tribe, Cinequest, 2005; Echoes of Home, Cinequest 2008) he now does for traditional Balkan music. This wonderful film is also a love story – and a door into a world of musical wonders.

The Cars We Drove into Capitalism (2021)

A cinematic, character-driven insight to what it meant to produce and to own a car in communist times: the Socialist propaganda dreams and the hard reality of living that dream. The freedom that these slow and clumsy vehicles were giving to their owners; the cars as an instrument in the Cold War battle; legends and homemade tune-ups as an attempt to stand at least a little bit off the crowd.

Несебър (1957)

The Prosecutor, the Defender, the Father and his Son (2015)

The Hague, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: Two ambitious lawyers face each other in the trial of Milorad Krstić, who’s accused of committing war crimes as a commander in the Bosnian war. The defender, Mikhail Finn, has managed to refute all the accusations against his client. Convinced of Krstic´s guilt, Catherine Lagrange, the prosecutor, summons a young man with incriminating evidence against Krstić. He claims to have been abandoned by his parents as a child and to have been one of Krstić’s soldiers. Defender Finn starts to investigate in order to verify the witness’ testimony – and soon encounters the young man’s family. Inspired by a true story.

Salto Mortale (2015)

"The back salto ruined my life. Maybe I should do a front one?" The story of phenomenal Bulgarian weightlifter Angel Guenchev's Olympics rise and subsequent fall from grace. Refusing to submit to the fate of a petty criminal in the post-1989 turmoil, he starts from scratch in search of redemption.

Back to Berlin (2018)

Back to Berlin is the first biker flick-meets-holocaust feature documentary. Eleven motor bikers have a mission to take the Maccabiah torch from Israel to the site of the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics, for the first Jewish Olympic Games on German soil. They will retrace the heroic journeys of the original 1930s' Maccabiah riders and discover how they or their families survived the Holocaust.

Exemplary Behaviour (2019)

Audrius Mickevičius puts the horribly disfigured face of his murdered brother at the start of his film. It is almost a meditation about the question whether a final act like murder can be atoned for in a temporal order – and whether the passing of time allows the victim’s family to forgive. Mickevičius uses the example of two lifers (one of them gets married and wants to have children, the other pours his whole passion into an idea of craftsmanship) and a philosopher with prison experience to make that strange state of suspended life comprehensible.

Stray Bodies (2024)

Robin is pregnant but doesn't want to be a mother. Katerina and Gaia are single but want a child. Kiki suffers from an incurable disease and wants her life to end with dignity. The procedures they hope to get access to – abortion, IVF and euthanasia – are only available and legal in other countries. Therefore, they resort to so-called medical tourism.

Here I Am, Again (2021)

Anyone else in his place would have given up, but not him. Just a month after narrowly surviving being hit by a car, high-altitude mountaineer and research-zoologist Boyan Petrov starts his recovery and long preparation to continue his dream: climbing all the fourteen 8,000-meter peaks. Without supplementary oxygen and 3 times cancer survivor, he has climbed all 10 of the 14 eight-thousanders. Now it's time for the world's giant - Everest. For this purpose, Boyan starts his journey by "warming-up" with the lowest peak among them - the so-called "dwarf" Shishapangma. Number 11 on his bucket list. An unexpected twist of fate leads to his disappearance a few meters under the peak which activates an unprecedented interstate rescue mission and helicopter searches between the countries of Nepal, China, and Bulgaria.

Palace for the People (2018)

The life and death of socialist architectural monsters. An epic fairy-tale in five chapters.

Georgi and the Butterflies (2004)

Georgi and the Butterflies tells the story of a man and his dream. This man is Dr Georgi Lulchev, a psychiatrist, neurologist, Chinese medicine man, administrator, amateur chef, entrepreneur and Director of the Home for Psychologically Disabled Men. His dream is to organise a farm in the yard of the home, where the patients can raise snails, ostriches and pheasants, produce silk fibres and soybean food. This is a story full of optimism, snails, ostriches, silk, charity, the Eastern Orthodox Church, soybean food, schizophrenics, oligophrenics, psychopaths, Korean investors, Western hunters, misery, acupuncture and compassion. Compassion, business, butterflies.

Paradise Hotel (2010)

The young Demir dreams of a wedding. But his Roma tower block at the outskirts of a provincial town in Bulgaria is no place for romance. 25 years ago it had all it takes for panel socialist heaven: from parquet floors to intercom, the coveted hot water central, street lamps, benches under murmuring apple trees. Someone called the place Paradise Hotel - and the name stuck. But with the years the block gradually changed. The parquet disappeared. The water stopped. The lights went off. But each of the 1 500 inhabitants has a plan how to get back the dream of Paradise Lost. And if you cross the field behind Paradise Hotel where heaven and earth meet, you will see Bozhidar "The God Given" who protects everyone from evil and excessive happiness in a documentary about panel integration, love, misery, a lot of dreams, a little lyrics and one Gypsy wedding.

Morality is Goodness (2022)

The documentary chronicles the life of Christian Takov amid the historical events of the last decades in Bulgaria. The film features a number of meticulously sourced and never before published footage and documents, as well as a series of interviews with the family, colleagues, friends and associates of Takov.

Nocturnes (2024)

In the dense forests of the Eastern Himalayas, moths are whispering something to us. In the dark of night, two curious observers shine a light on this secret universe.

The Long Way Home (2014)

We have witnessed how a Roma baby Ilya was left by his mum for an international adoption in 1993. 20 years later the young Frenchman came to Bulgaria to visit his mother and his seven brothers and sisters. An emotional film for the collision of cultures. Other Bulgarian children found parents abroad while shooting "The Long Way Home".

Icarus from Kocherinovo (0)

Nikolai Popovski from Kocherinovo wished he could fly since he was a child. Without any proper training, he invents and builds the first Bulgarian helicopter in his father's yard.

Corridor No. 8 (2008)

The road linking Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania corresponds to the site of a huge EU infrastructure project called Corridor #8. Corridor No. 8+ is a mosaic film combining fragments from the everyday lives of the characters who live along this non-existent Balkan road. MUBI

The Magic Life of V (2019)

Haunted by childhood traumas, Veera is trying to become more independent through live-action role-playing. As she guides herself and her mentally challenged brother through worlds of multiple roles and identities, witches and wizards, she finds the courage to face the demons of her own past and her abusive father’s legacy.

The Good Postman (2016)

In a small Bulgarian village troubled by the ongoing refugee crisis, a local postman runs for mayor—and learns that even minor deeds can outweigh good intentions.

Concrete Pharaohs (2010)

Welcome to the picturesque world of the Kaldarash Roma – a closed community of no more than 1 million people all over the world. 'Concrete Pharaohs' take us on a journey into the lifestyle and traditions of the most hidden and intriguing Roma communities. A charismatic Gypsy baron will walk us through his stories and his new house. We will learn the hot trends in Roma tombstone design. We will go down into the underground homes of African granite, furnished with beds, wardrobes, stereos and a charged cell phone – a direct line to the other world. A celebration of life and afterlife in all of their manifestations.

Sofia's Last Ambulance (2012)

Bumpy are the pot-holed roads of Bulgaria’s capital Sofia. Doctor Krassi, nurse Mila and driver Plamen fly over them daily at break-neck speed. Together the three form one of 13 ambulance teams providing assistance to over two million people. They zoom around the city on double shifts from one emergency to the next. Ilian Metev’s camera is not aimed at those in need of help – their dignity remains preserved. He focuses instead upon the rescue team Krassi, Mila and Plamen and their wild rides across the city on a never-ending battle with time – a feat almost impossible without humour. The ambulance team fight against a ramshackle health system with passion, selflessness and sometimes near resignation. Ilian Metlev accompanied the trio for more than two years to find images that make poetry of the human figure and this depiction of reality.

No Place For You in Our Town (2022)

The hard life of a hardcore football hooligan in a Bulgarian mining town where operations have long since shut down and the future looks bleak. But is there another side to his tough and violent facade?

Life Is an Eternal Swing (2015)

This documentary tells the intimate stories of a singing group and three jazz musicians in Bulgaria as they embark on their artistic journeys.

Our Quiet Place (2021)

Elitza Gueorguieva films the making of the novel that her Belarusian alter-ego Aliona begins about her father, a maritime adventurer, physicist and dreamer, who disappeared off the Turkish coast in 1995.

Kukeri (2023)

Once a year, the Bulgarian tradition of Kukeri unites a small village as residents wear intricate masks and costumes and dance at night. Killian Lassablière chronicles the practice in his short documentary.

BNT presents: Georgi Gospodinov in the Time Shelter (2023)

A documentary about the Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov, who won the International Booker Prize in 2023 for his novel Time Shelter.

The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories (2007)

The epic story of a village turned concentration camp, turned a city, turned nuclear power plant and of its population. A world instantly transformed by ideologies, regimes and dreams of economic prosperity. The tales of characters whose lives intersect in a sinister past, nuclear future and the stinging mosquitoes flying through time, sealing their fate together.

Silent Legacy (2021)