Dir/Wri: Genevieve Dulude-de Celles | Cast: Galin Stoev, Ekaterina Stanina, Sofia Stanina, Chiara Caselli, Michelle Tzonchev | Drama 103′ 2026.
An intense and richly rewarding film about the emotional cost of emigration, and child exploitation, and the fickle nature of the art market. Talented filmmaker Genevieve Dulude-De Celles explores all the elements in a haunting family story that sees a man return to his past to understand the present.
Age gives us so many answers, so much wisdom. And that’s what art specialist Mihail discovers when he goes back to his native Sophia having left the country thirty year’s previously, uprooting his daughter Rose (Tzontchev) who is now a mother herself and going through a divorce. In a bid to immerse himself in Canada, Mihail has eradicated his Bulgarian past and this has deeply affected his daughter who wants to know more about the country and the family she left behind in her childhood.
Mihail îs always looking for new talent in his art gallery in Montreal and when he comes across the viral internet images of impressionistic hand paintings from a so-called ‘child prodigy’ called Nina, who is from his own country, alarm bells ring. Is little Nina really talented or have the artworks been done by her family (a well-known scam) just to draw international attention in a bid to make money?. Mihail and his colleague at the gallery are sceptical but in the end Mihail is sent on an exploratory trip back to Bulgaria to meet the young artist. At the same time he will revisit his past and discovers that the move, three decades ago, deeply impacted his own daughter.
On arrival Mihail falls under the spell of his homeland. The sights and sounds of the capital Sofia come flooding back up but also the playful nature of the people with their intoxicating joie de vivre and offbeat sense of humour. Travelling deep into the countryside he meets a waggish local who promises to take Mihail to the home of Nina where he meets her mother, a modest but talented potter who turns out vernacular pottery. When he sets eyes on Nina he realises the child herself is an certainly an enigma, aloof and darkly suspicious she refuses to paint for Mihail. What emerges is her strong-willed petulance and desire for free expression to control of her own creative output. She resents producing her art at the behest of a so-called benefactors. But this only makes Mihail more keen to acquire her work and take it back home
The following day after a lively night and bibulous night spent with the villagers, he climbs up to the mountainside and discovers little Nina in her atelier painting her canvas with her bare hands. She is a force for nature. What happens next is both alarming and revealing and illustrates the lengths adults will go to manipulate and exploit talent for their own ends. And this is the crux of this enchanting parable that works at both an enchanting ethnological portrait of rural Bulgaria and an exploration of raw creativity and its monetisation.
IN COMPETITION | BERLINALE 2026