Another discovery from within the 2026 Karlovy Vary Film Festival line-up this year is this Bulgarian indie film titled Black Money for White Nights, made by the Bulgarian filmmaker duo Kristina Grozeva & Petar Valchanov. It’s a worthwhile feature that can & should reach audiences around the world, not just a few cinephiles at festivals, and I hope it connects to viewers well beyond Europe. The film is about a middle-aged Bulgarian couple whose vacation dream plans fall apart when the war in Ukraine begins in early 2022. It’s a tragicomedy, featuring some very dark humor if you can laugh at their sad situation, but it’s also pretty much just a heartbreaking full-on tragedy looking at how greedy and destructive the world is. As with many great films, even though the story is specific to Bulgaria and this couple’s existence, it’s a universal tale with themes that everyone will understand & related to, mainly about how humanity is so obsessed with money they everyone lives on the brink of despair & hopelessness unless they throw out their own morals, too. The exceptional lead performances by the two actors who play Marina & Gosha are what make this film special. Their nuance, their clarity, their heartfelt humanity, is a key part of this film’s ability to connect so deeply.
Black Money for White Nights, originally Черни пари за бели нощи in Bulgarian, is co-directed by Kristina Grozeva & Petar Valchanov (also of The Lesson, Glory, The Father, Triumph), from a screenplay co-written by Kristina Grozeva, Petar Valchanov, and Decho Taralezhkov. It follows the loving couple Marina, starring Tanya Shahova, and Gosha, starring Ivan Savov, who’ve been building up their savings by secretly taking bribes in their jobs. Everyone else does it, of course, but they’re quite good at it – Marina as a nurse, Gosha as a security guard at a train station. Once they’ve earned enough, just as they’re about to retire, they decide to take the trip they’ve been dreaming about for 30 years – to go see the “White Nights” in St. Petersburg, Russia, visiting during the summer months where the sun is up all day and it never gets dark at night. They book through a sketchy travel agency; just as they’re about to leave Russia invades Ukraine and everything changes in Europe. Right as they’re about to try and fly anyway, they discover the travel agency is defunct, their flights have been cancelled, and they can’t their any money back. Now they must deal with everything that lead up to this point. Their lives begin to unravel as they come to reckon with their own morally corrupt choices and the greedy world that surrounds them as they head home realizing the dream is over. It’s really depressing to watch, though invigorating in how cleverly the corruption & rottenness is depicted on screen.
The film very nicely pulls us into their experience and evokes a full set of emotions. Of course, they’re just as corrupt as everyone else, taking bribes, never really thinking or caring about anyone or anything else in the world. But as the story goes on, I started to feel really bad for Marina & Gosha. And it’s hard to shake that feeling. Everyone they turn to for help seems to want to take something from them, too. Everyone else just cares about money. If I was in this situation, I would feel absolutely gutted – and I think it is important to empathize with them and how destroyed they must feel giving up on this dream. But at the same time, that empathy is an important part of their reckoning & reflection. This is a clever story of an awakening, coming to see the world for what it really is… Even though it can be sad to watch this tragic story play out, the film is engaging by allowing viewers to have an awakening as well. We’re all trapped in this greedy system and there’s nothing any of us can do about it. Though it’s not hopeless, we shouldn’t all just give up and become immoral citizens as well. Because there is something vital within their love, and in their relationships, and in the humanity they learn is important through their catastrophe. And while this isn’t a guide to how to fix what’s broken, it is an engrossing depiction of the flawed gluttonous society we all must navigate carefully. And learning to be careful is the only reasonable way forward. I believe it is possible to fix what is broken…
Alex’s KVIFF 2026 Rating: 8.5 out of 10
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