Stolen Eyes

The year is 1984. The government in Bulgaria begins a harsh campaign against the Turkish minority. People’s names are changed by force and speaking Turkish is banned. Tens of thousands emigrate under the pressure. Ayten is a primary school teacher. Her family decides to settle in Turkey. She chooses to stay. She goes back to the village where her grandfather still lives. Ivan works as a clerk in the administration. The seals needed for the new identity papers are in his keeping. Ayten tries to take them, meaning to slow the renaming down. Ivan is left with a decision, either to rename her or to answer for not doing it, and an unlikely bond forms between the two. Vesela Kazakova and Nejat İşler appear in the hundred and ten minute film, a Bulgarian and Turkish production Radoslav Spassov finished in 2005.