And That’s for This Christmas

Director: Peter Vulchev

And That’s for This Christmas

Bulgaria, 2024, 14’

Director: Peter Vulchev

Cast: Lubomir Buchvarov (Rangel)

 

While preparing the details for his own funeral, an elderly man realises that he will be celebrating Christmas alone. Unable to fall asleep, he decides to spend the holiday at the grave of his deceased wife.

 

 

There comes a day when everything is arranged in your mind, and suddenly you notice that you don't even remember the most important things in your life anymore. This day brings with it the end – the end of the old self you lived with for years... and the beginning of your new self. It's the beginning in which you see that you are all alone - alone in yourself and alone in your thoughts... and alone you will be at the moment of death... Alone, regardless of everything and everyone, even if there are the nearest or the closest ones – you are alone, you know it! You are at the beginning of the end.

Alone on this day, eighty-year-old Rangel finds himself living a quiet life in a small mountain town in the middle of a desolate winter. The focus of the film captures your attention at a certain point in his life when he, like many other elderly people in small Balkan towns, decides to gather clothes and belongings for his funeral. It happens on Christmas day when he realizes that his family will not be with him. On the eve of the holiday, Rangel cannot sleep. Surrounded by memories of old photos and accumulated funeral items, every corner of his house offers him no respite. So, he decides at night to go to the cemetery to confess to his only close person – his deceased wife. With this final confession, he tells her that all he wants now is to be himself... Without the burden of being a father, grandfather, husband, or man... Without any public or social roles, but with a single desire to escape from all and lie naked on the seashore and feel the sun shining upon him...