Night and Day (Nosht i den)

Novelist and filmmaker Krasimir Krumov comments on a number of issues plaguing 21st Century Bulgaria with this drama concerning a young boy who seeks help for his ailing mother in the home of a religious elder whose hypocritical actions belie his outwardly holy image. Imaginative twelve year-old Marko (Kristian Simeonov) lives on a remote Bulgarian farm with his homemaking mother Sevda (Radena Valkanova) and his hard-working father Manol (Dimitar Martinov) - who supports his family by toiling away in the local mines. Rendered jobless by a heated strike, Manol accepts local hodja (Muslim wise man)'s offer to leave his family in the country and aid in the construction of a mosque in the city. While Manol is away, Sevda is brutally raped by a gang of local thugs and left in a catatonic state. Though Marko manages to transport his mother to the home of hodja Hyusni (Rumen Traykov), the ostensive holy man only reluctantly allows the pair to enter his home and wait for an ambulance. During their excruciating wait, local heavy Mehmed (Nikolay Urumov) arrives at Hyusani's home to confront the hodja about a lingering personal issue. It seems that Mehmed was once set to become Hyusni's brother in law, though Mehmed's wedding plans hit an unexpected hitch when he was deemed an inadequate Muslim and denied Hyusni's sister's hand in marriage. As the pair enter into a heated debate, Hyusni's own religious status is brought into question when it's revealed that he Christianized his name during the anti-Turkish purge of the 1980s while Mehmed was jailed for maintaining his faith.