This year’s best Balkan film portrays a man’s life at eight, eighteen and eighty-two years of age. His life passes as a series of monotonous images, depicting a predetermined fate, apparently devoid of meaning. But behind it all lies some sort of unseen force, driving him forward and preparing him for his final encounter with death.

Kamen Kalev, Bulgaria’s most internationally renowned filmmaker, tells a timeless tale of the connection between human and nature, presenting the eternal cycle, changing seasons and three phases of existence – child, adult, old man – in all their tedium, mystery, power and beauty. A cinematic poem exploring age-old human questions from the standpoint of philosophy, mysticism and existentialism, the film is shot on the captivating backdrop of south-eastern Bulgaria, close to the Turkish border, where time seems to have come to an eternal standstill. Simple and endowed with a humanist soul, this is a work for the perceptive filmgoer.