Alphabet of Hope

There is a piece of land called ‘the dead zone’, unmarked, two hundred meters wide and stretching for kilometres along the Bulgarian border. Most of the inhabitants fled to Turkey in the 1980s when Bulgarian authorities, in order to force a native, or ‘autochthonous’ purity, made mandatory the changing of all Turkish names into Slavic ones. The villages near the border were gradually abandoned. The film focuses on a few families who stayed behind in a dozen hamlets, and the problems they face educating their children. Most of the schools were closed as the villages became deserted. The nearest school is nearly 100 kilometres away. Children must travel there every day by local van, despite the heavy rains and snow. The friendship between the children and the driver, or with the local physician who narrates the beginning of the film, provides the parents with the hope that somebody cares. Belonging mainly to a minority, the people who remain and change their names attempt to raise their kids with a positive spirit. This elegy, beautifully shot, conveys the sadness, but also the lyricism of lives which are determined by others.