one of films from the East. about same clash between ideals and reality. about refuges, friendship, life problems , need to preserve the age of freedom and to discover yourself in the other. delicate, amusing, dark. useful. for describe a state of a too long transition to an idealistic form of normality. for the beautiful cinematography. for the dialogues. and performances. for the small individual cases. for the spirit of joy. and for the traits of each character. and, sure, for the honest manner to define essential problems. and this is all.

but this is its virtue. old things, a lot of clichés, young people in search of life sense, a beach, fight against law, rules and society, confessions, friendship, bitter melancholia and joy of small things. slices of freedom. and end like part of modern fairy tale. nothing original. but the state of prison in yourself is without limits. and, in crisis hours, this kind of film, with dust of Balkan way to resist against existence troubles, with delicate harsh poetry, with the expressions of a generation frustration, the sea, the dialogs, the joy to be only yourself is really cure. a film about nothing. and, in fact, about all. a drawing. and tool for a trip in his experiences for its public.

Six youngsters decide to leave the bleak and dreary city in order to spend the summer together at the seaside, seeking freedom, believing they will find it there. It sounds like the perfect story, one that will fascinate you and probably will leave (even a subtle)trace in the history of Bulgarian cinema. Partly due to all the media attention surrounding it, and yes, this is the Bulgarian submission for the Oscars, so expectations were pretty high. Unfortunately, in my opinion, "Sneakers" could not live up to them. No remarkable lines, no scenes that will be remembered but what's worse - no goal. Six youngsters, and they were heading nowhere. Why? Disappointed by the mundane reality? There did not seem to be any major obstacle between them and any possible life goals. Proud to be nobody? Proud to ask "what is your dream", "what is your idea" while not pursuing any ambition at all? Therefore, we end up with no likable characters and a rather empty movie where the most important spoiler would be that pretty much nothing happens until the last 15 minutes. My advice? If you want to catch a glimpse of the contemporary Bulgarian cinema, you'd better choose another movie.

Saw this film in the Bulgarian film festival a couple of days ago, possibly my very first Bulgarian-originated film ever. It is a superbly well-crafted adventurer of 6 strange youngsters congregate at an unknown beach near Sofia and experiences their carefree indulgence with the nature and rediscover a rite-of-passage in their respective inner journey.The film, elaborates magnificently a repressive malaise in the city in the beginning, especially with the ferocious tendency towards violence and unjustness. When the sea beach scenario pops up, the backbone of the story finally emerges, a stint of aimlessness is palatable but some interrupting fly-on-the-fall interviews on each character distract the somewhat weary idleness of the hedonistic rapture on the beach.A looming mishap is indomitably approaching, all frolic is doomed to be ephemeral, nevertheless the would-be THELMA & LOUISE (1991) ending curbs within a detour to an unrealistic escapism, which in my opinion points up an inconvenient situation of the downhill of a lost youth peer group, and it's not provincial, it's global. The final scene holds the stance of being drolly whimsical and a shade poignant simultaneously. The 6-packed cast is favorable in depicting an evocative harmony and the standouts are a tomboyish Marian Valev and the co-director-writer-actor of the film Valeri Yordanov, an intimidating look at first sight, but witty and cordial inside, which convincingly breaches the stereotype of skinheads and tattooers. Visually abundant, this film carries an audience-favored narrative and avoids melodramatic clichés to depict the otherwise easily hoarse mutual attractions among characters. It obtained an avid round of applause after the screening, and it was an indeed pleasure for me to fetch an opportunity to watch something recommendable from countries lesser known for their film productivity.