Directed by Ralitza Petrova • 2016 • Bulgaria

Ralitza Petrova’s uncompromising portrait of Bulgarian society’s spiritual decline is one of the most vital films to emerge from the Balkans in the last decade. First-time actor Irena Ivanova is impassively impressive as Gana, a social care nurse who sells the identities of her elderly patients on the black market in order to fund her morphine addiction. Can her tentative connection to a former dissident drag her out of her stupor? As Petrova peels back the layers of moral degradation that ensnare Gana, her character study becomes an indictment of post-socialist corruption. Drawing on thriller and noir conventions as well as the social realist tradition of neighbouring Romania, Godless is a bracingly bitter watch.

GODLESS • БЕЗБОГ
Written and directed by Ralitza Petrova
Cinematography by Krum Rodriguez and Chayse Irvin
Starring: Irena Ivanova, Ventzislav Konstantinov, Ivan Nalbantov

In Bulgarian with English subtitles

Winner of the Golden Leopard for Best Film at the Locarno International Film Festival, 2016