Review of July

Krapetz (July, as the Bulgarian new title says) is the first feature film by director Kiril Stankov. Three women have a vacation on the Black Sea coast and share fun, friendship and disillusion. Kasiel Noah Asher steals the scene as Dana, the older one, a would-be writer who has been abroad for years and seems to be the director's alter ego: Stankov has been studying cinema in Israel and this movie is also about the dramatic changes, not only for the good, that post-communist Bulgaria went through and Stankov perceived when he came back home. Many of the troubles in this movie are related to women's condition and as a result most male characters here are quite disgusting: a couple of human traffickers, some corrupted policemen, an embittered old man who can't play chess and a nice guy that turns out to be a coward when he's really needed. Only exception is a half-wit teenager.

POSSIBLE SPOILER AHEAD

All in all, the film is an interesting and shady portrait of modern day Bulgaria, whose only flaw is a most unlikely, Hollywod-style revenge movie finale.