Cinema at home with BCI London: “The Last Black Sea Pirates”

Director: Svetoslav Stoyanov
Script: Vanya Raynova
Cameramen: Orlin Ruevski and Ivan Nikolov
Producer: Martichka Bozhilova

“The Last Black Sea Pirates” is one of the rare examples when a documentary reaches the big screen. But after his four international awards, two of which – in Yerevan and Vienna – big, and the start in Bulgaria with the audience award at last year’s Sofia Film Fest and the grand prize at the Golden Rhyton Documentary Film Festival, the experiment is worth it. Unusual, absolutely make-up and in places looks almost fantastic spectacle for characters that we would certainly consider fictional, if we did not know that they are completely authentic, “The Last Black Sea Pirates” provokes, entertains, laughs and saddens its viewers with the means of auteur cinema . On the screen we see several men who have already passed their adulthood, living on a wild beach on Kara Dere, in a caravan over which the black pirate flag is flying, and for years spending their time searching for the legendary treasure of the janissary Valchan – or talking about it on brandy money and cigarette smoke. But on Kara Dere, it turns out, they are not the only ones looking for treasure – a project of a world-famous architect sees in place of pristine beaches a real oasis for wealthy tourists with luxury hotels, a marina, gaming halls and even an opera, with lots of concrete. However, the film, as its authors say, is not about ecology, but about dreams. A tragicomedy about the treasures we look for and (don’t) find. Sealed on the tape a moment that has passed and will not be repeated – before the film came out on the big screen, the captain of the “pirates”, it turns out, went on his last voyage. But on the screen – yo-ho-ho – viewers can still meet this weirdo and together with him feel the unadulterated taste of sea salt …