User Reviews

If you like films with action, spectacle and high drama then this is probably not going to be a film you'd like. Nothing much seems to happen. The characters spend their time drinking coffee, playing chess and playing bridge. Most of them are retired and live to a small, fixed routine.

Vasil is a Bulgarian who has left Bulgaria for Spain. It is never made entirely clear why he has done this, though it seems he is looking for a better life. Maureen, an Irish woman who has settled in Spain, asks her friend a retired professor to put Vasil up until he can get a job and get settled, as a favour to her. The professor agrees but takes no interest in Vasil and finds out nothing about him. His daughter berates him for being unfriendly and self-centred and demands that he arranges for her to meet Vasil so she can get to know him. She is about the only open-minded character in the film, apart from Vasil himself. Vasil turns out to be an unassuming, likeable man with a few interesting talents but, except right at the end of the film, we only see him from the other characters point of view and they never engage with him fully. The film turns into a representation of how people generally are ungenerous, suspicious and judgemental towards "foreigners" and "immigrants" and can't handle people with different lifestyles and dreams to their own. Maureen is broader minded than the rest of them because she was married to an embassador and has lived in a few different countries. But she is unable to prevail against the others' narrowness.

This film is in no way boring and repays close watching. I said nothing much seems to happen but you realise that what is happening is an interplay of rivalries, jealousies and relationship failures between the characters, some of which subtly change as a result of their meeting Vasil.

I saw this film (Spanish dialogue with English subtitles) at a private showing for staff of GMAC in Manchester. I don't know where, or whether, it is being shown anywhere else.

It is a light comedy with some characters dealing with ordinary life with the usual incidents of ordinary mortals, and here dealing with the problems of immigration and the relationship between parents and children and an enjoyable friendship. Karra Elejalde (La Vida Padre), Alexandra Jimenez (Supernormal) and the Bulgarian actor Ivan Barnev star in this story in which two men, opposite to each other, manage to break their barriers to build a very special friendship based on tolerance and respect for others. The idea for Vasil to go to Alfredo's house came from Maureen, an Irish friend who has been in Spain for many years. Vasil is a great Bridge player and many of the posh girls who go to the club where he plays raffle him off to play with them. Here an immigrant brings his different outlook on life to four characters he meets up with during two months in Spain. Vasil is intelligent, charismatic and a number 1 player at bridge and chess, but he has been sleeping on the street since he arrived from Bulgaria. Alfredo, a retired architect, welcomes him into his house for a while before the astonished gaze of his daughter Luisa. The two men have nothing in common except their passion for chess. Despite their differences, little by little Vasil will manage to break the barriers built by Alfredo. And Vasil has this gift: to forever transform those people with whom he interacts.

Barney gives a nice acting playing Vasil, a brilliant, charismatic, charismatic man with an eminence in chess, who however sleeps on the street since he arrived from Bulgaria, while Elejalde is pretty well as Alfredo, a retired architect who welcomes Vasisl into his home. Alfredo takes in Vasil, a Bulgarian immigrant who lives on the street, in his house for a time, until the young man gets his papers and finds a job.

Vasil is not the typical desperate foreigner, he goes asking for help from different organizations, but he does not despair either, and he does not sacrifice his daily game at the club to take any course for the unemployed. Vasil's tranquility drives Alfredo to despair, and he still spends the afternoons playing chess with him. Alfredo doesn't give it much importance, but his daughter doesn't have it all together and she begins to investigate the young Bulgarian's past.

Dealing with interesting topics such as tolerance, respect for others, social exclusion, cultural identity or migratory movements. Vasil is the debut feature of director Avelina Pratt who had previously made ¨Shorts¨. As the director explains: "People want to help a little, but up to certain limits, without them touching our area of comfort, from then on we feel a little threatened¨. In closed roles, lacking dialogues, but with many nuances between two people who are completely opposite.

The director uses many interior shots, and photography with warm and pleasant colors, to give the film a fable-like tone and intimate atmosphere. In her debut feature Avelina Prat shows us an x-ray of human relationships , as the director wrote the script based on a story that her father told her, about welcoming an immigrant into her house.

The film had its presentation at the Warsaw Film Festival, and here in our country we have been able to see it in the Official Section of the Valladolid Film Festival, where it won the award for best actor for its two protagonists. Winning several nominations and awrds, such as: Feroz Awards, Miriam Porté 2023 Nominado Feroz Award Best Film: Comedy, Nominado Feroz Award Best Actor in a Leading Role Karra Elejalde. Gaudí Awards 2023 Nominado Gaudí Award Best New Director Avelina Prat. Cinema Writers Circle Awards, 2023 Ganador Solidarity Medal Fiction Avelina Prat .The Golden Linden International Film Festival 2023 Nominado The Golden Linden Award Best Film Avelina Prat. Bulgarian Film Academy Awards Ivan Barnev 2023 Nominado Vasil Gendov Award Best Leading Actor. Warsaw International Film Festival 2022 Nominado Competition Best Film Avelina Prat. Valladolid International Film Festival 2022 Nominado Golden Spike Best Film Avelina Prat Ivan Barnev ,2022 Ganador Best Actor Best Actor Ivan Barnev, Karra Elejalde. Berlanga Awards 2022 Ganador Berlanga Best Film, Best Director Avelina Prat.