CLOSING NIGHT

Sunday, March 19, 7:30 PM

Northwest Premiere

Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, 1999, 108 min.

Bulgarian w/subtitles, Ivan Nichev, Director

After the End of the World

Albert Cohen, an Israeli history professor, returns to the city of his birth in Bulgaria to give a lecture. Instead, he begins a sentimental journey into the past after running into his first love, an Armenian girl whom he thought had immigrated to France.  The two rediscover each other and recall their childhood kisses and pranks in the unique atmosphere of Plovdiv in the 1940s. Plovdiv is one of the oldest cities in the Balkans, where Bulgarians, Armenians, Turks, Jews, Romas and Greeks supposedly lived in harmony in the wake of Ottoman rule and before Stalin’s purges, Communism and WWII ended this idyllic world as they knew it. With warmth and humor, esteemed director Ivan Nichev brings us an enchanting story from the “lost” Balkan world where the local priest, rabbi and mullah played cards and drank together.

Special Guest: Dr. Dan Chirot, Professor of International Studies and Sociology, University of Washington Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies

For more information about this film, visit www.bavaria-film-international.de

For a list of related readings available at Tree of Life Books and Judaica and through the American Jewish Committee, please visit our SJFF 2000 Reading List.