Nikolai Valchinov

Canary Season

It's 1980. Malin is fatherless, angry, and in trouble. At 20, he's spent a year in jail for assaulting a lover of Lily, his mother. In her desk he finds a soldier's photograph and assumes he's found his father. He confronts the man, now a teacher, and gets nowhere. At home again, he mocks his mother. Finally, she tells him her grim story, from the year before his birth. We see a people's court, where Lily's parents seek justice for their grandchild to be. We follow Lily to a prison camp, to the city where she's told to inform on the only person who's been kind, to an asylum, and finally to her current poverty and loneliness. How will Malin respond to these revelations?

Amigo Ernesto

This film was commissioned by the International Children's Assembly, 1985. Ernesto is a boy from Nicaragua. In his homeland, a Bulgarian doctor works, who is friends with Ernesto. The boy sings well. He is invited to visit Bulgaria during the children's assembly. Along the way, he experiences a number of twists and turns. His Bulgarian friends are looking for him all over Bulgaria. Ernesto and his friends meet at the closing of the assembly. They experience unforgettable hours.