Acting
Dreaming of the West, Boryana is determined not to have a child in communist Bulgaria. Nonetheless, her daughter Viktoria enters the world in 1979, curiously missing a belly button, and is declared the country’s Baby of the Decade. Pampered by her mother state until the age of nine, Viktoria’s decade of notoriety comes crashing down with the rest of European communism. But can political collapse and the hardship of new times finally bring Viktoria and her reluctant mother closer together
Grigor, a nondescript, naive man whom everyone mockingly calls Gringo, begins to hear a voice. This voice claims to represent the truer part of him. And it begins to urge him to avenge the undeserved humiliation and abuse he is constantly subjected to. In doing so, he will break with outdated prejudices, become a new man. Grigor resists, but can he resist temptation and the truth of evil? The voice falls silent when the crime is committed. Has Grigor himself committed it? And what kind of man is he then?
The title is based on the idiomatic expression "shmenti capelli" characterizing actions of people who like to shuffle and bamboozle others with superficial commitments. Karamfilov choose it as a metaphor for people with huge economic and political power. The funny comedy incorporates a tragic story in which Karamfilov plays two roles: the Big Guy and the Little Guy. Big is tied to the Mafia and the Secret services. Little is an unemployed teacher, squeezed and crushed by the system, which stops his heating and electricity, has his home emptied by a bailiff, and uses him as a tool in a game.
