Gundi: Legend of Love

Dimitar Dimitrov's 2024 Bulgarian film tells the life of the footballer Georgi Asparuhov. He was among the country's best known sportsmen in the sixties, and the film treats his career through his relationship with his wife Lita. The narrative does not take success on the pitch as its only subject. The political order of the period entered players' lives directly, and transfers abroad, surveillance and pressure sit inside the story. Asparuhov died in a road accident in 1971, a death long argued over in the country. The film advances no firm claim about it and describes the effect of the event. Period design and match sequences take wide space. Who it's for: those who like sporting biography and Eastern European period films. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a critical portrait; the film tells its subject largely within an exalting frame.