SESTRA

In reality Rayna lives together with her mother and older sister in a house by a busy countryside highway in provincial Bulgaria. They're in fact all alive and well, with only the fate of the sisters' father an unknown. It's said her mother used to have many lovers. Rayna looks at her sister with a mixture of envy and admiration, after all fate has been kinder to her: her name, Kamelia, is more beautiful, and then she has a boyfriend, the macho neighbour and car mechanic Miro. Rayna is likewise smitten, as evidenced by her constant teasing of him. Cursed by her older sister, who regards her as both malicious and somewhat deranged due to her impudence and lies, arguments between the two often escalate out of control. When Miro ends up in trouble Rayna proves to be the only person who rushes to his aid. In the process she finds out truths about her mother that would have been better left unsaid.

Svetla Tsotsorkova shapes the plot of this, her second feature film, with great skill and patience, in a manner akin to Rayna's approach to her figurines. SISTER stands out with an impressive visual language, in turn making this female portrait all the more worth watching. JP