The audience award at the Zurich film festival, which took place between September 25 and October 5, was won by the Bulgarian movie ‘The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner’.

The film is based on the autobiographical novel by Iliya Troyanov. He was born in Sofia in 1965 but his family immigrated to Germany six years later, in 1971. Troyanov grew up in Kenya. Later he lived in Kenya, South Africa and Germany. He writes his novels in German, including ‘The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner’. The book was first translated in Bulgarian in 1997 and has so far won four prestigious literary awards in Germany.

The movie, based on the novel, is often described as the most ambitious Bulgarian movie project since 1989. It is a co-production between Bulgaria, Slovenia, Hungary and Germany. It tells the story of Alex, born in small Bulgarian town in 1976 and later moved to live in Germany.

At the age of 30 Alex has a car accident in Germany in which his parents die and he himself looses his memory. He is than visited by his grandfather, Dan – a local backgammon champion in the town Alex was born in.

Both grandfather and grandson travel back to the small Bulgarian town where Alex will find out the truth about his past and present and will discover who he is.

In the role of Dan is the Serbian actor Predrag Manojlovic and Alex is played by the German of Croatian origin Carlo Ljubek. Director of the movie is Stefan Komandarev, producers are Stefan Kitanov, Karl Baumgartner, Tanasis Karatanos, Daniel Hocevar, and Andras Muhi.

The Bulgarian actors, playing in the film, are Hristo Mutafchiev, Ani Papadopolu, Nikolay Urumov, Pavel Popandov.