SILENT OBSERVERS
Eliza Petkova / Bulgaria, Germany / 2024 / 96 min / Colour
Italian premiere
Long sequences focus on the muzzles, eyes, noses, and paws of six animals living in an isolated mountain village in Bulgaria. They appear to be the only living beings in a world of the dead. The human inhabitants appear from behind, blurred and almost detached from reality. The elderly women of the village seem to share a symbiotic relationship with the animals: they speak and sing to them. One elderly woman tells her friend that the soul of a deceased loved one has possessed the body of a cat, while the cat’s soul has taken residence in the corpse of the dead man. A donkey is considered bewitched, and a dog is accused of being a chicken thief. Ancient rituals are perpetuated, though without full conviction. Superstition pervades everything. The animals watch silently, unable to communicate with humans, yet a goat’s cry when its offspring is taken away is heart-wrenching and expresses all its pain. With the death of one of the elderly women, even the donkey is left alone. Time seems suspended, while invisible forces linger in the shadows.
Eliza Petkova
Born in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, in 1983, she studied Philosophy and Japanese Culture at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf before specializing at the German Film and Television Academy. An independent documentary filmmaker, her film Absent was nominated for the Cinéfondation Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015. Her debut feature Zhaleika (2016) won the Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.
