Thirst / Jajda

White sheets flap around in the wind somewhere on a hilltop in the Bulgarian outback. It’s the laundry of several local hotels with which a married couple and their 16-year-old son eke out a living. The intermittent water supply caused by the scorching hot summer is jeopardising their business, and a well-digging father and his pubescent daughter are called in to solve the problem. While searching for a new spring, the two families slowly get to know each other, and it transpires that there’s a much greater thirst than that for water – the thirst for love, which soon turns the simple life of our protagonists on its head. Using highly expressive cinematic imagery and a pinch of laconicism, Svetla Tsotsorkova’s debut feature builds step by step on the thirst for love of its protagonists until it reaches the magnificent dramatic finale.