A father's love for his gifted daughter puts him at odds with the prejudiced townsfolk in this visually stunning tale with supernatural elements.
Stadoto-Tarika was screened at the 30th Kolkata international Film Festival(KIFF) and it bagged the Best Film Award (Royal Bengal Tiger - Best Film Award). I feel grateful to get an opportunity to watch this film twice, once during the original screening and second time when the best film of the festival was screened. I am glad as I also got an opportunity to talk to the Director of this wonderful movie - Milko Razarov and we shared few words and thought on this movie.Tarika narrates the story of a father and daughter(continued with 3 generations -Grandmother, father and Mother and Father and Daughter - at present onset. Tarika(Vesela Valcheva) is an young girl living with her father and grandmother in a remote Mountain village in Bulagaria, isolated from the villagers. She is a victim of a bone disease which has been inherited from her grandmother and required a surgery. The doctor left it on the father (Zachary Bacharov) to decide. who finally decided to carry on without the surgery. The disease in turn, turned out to be a reason for Tarika to be considered as a witch and to be the reason for all the ill-things happening in the village which appears supernatural by the villagers and she gets accused. The father's struggle to protect the daughter continues till the end when the villagers come to kill the family after the death of Nikola a young boy in the village who used to be sad, fragile and melancholic, almost of the same age of Tarika. The green meadows surrounded by hills, with fountains and the army marching aside, is poetic and lyrical. the visual metaphors displays symbolic reflections of the characters and situations. This is truly a masterpiece by Milko Razarov and a must watch by everyone. It is evident that the expression comes from lot of hurt and pain experienced from the society and mankind we live in. It appears to b a naked display of the degrading humanism showcased as nasty beliefs of mankind as an excuse to hide sins of the powerful elements in the society though excellent visual metaphors. It a movie with least dialogues and words and is related metaphorically through nature, animals, birds and with pure expressions. Outstanding performance by child-daughter Vasela Valcheva.
