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Baba Vanga Directed by Aleksandra Niemczyk

Updated: May 9, 2019



Baba Vanga

Directed by Aleksandra Niemczyk

Starring: Jasmina Basic, Bojan Chabichou, Amela Delic, Zlaja Dzanovic, Ravijojla Jovancic, Edib Lagumdzija, Sabina Mrgan, Nastazja Niedziela, Virginie Roche, Elma Selman, Sasa Skoko, Jovana Skrijelj, Tatjana Sojic, Vedad Trbonja

Year: 2016

Country: Bosnia, Poland

Author Review: Roberto Matteucci

"I will tell you only if you promise you will not seek revenge."

Rupite is a village inside Bulgaria, a mountainous, peasant area, lived by simple people.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, it had to be an underdeveloped zone, with widespread poverty. At that time, in Rupite lived Vangelija Pandeva Dimitrova called Baba Vanga, a lively girl with no mother. At twelve, during a storm, she disappeared. She was found after a few days with eyes full of sand. The eye problem, surely ill-treated, forced the girl to blindness. Subsequently, she began to read the thought and foretell the future.

She began to be famous as prescient, among the visitors there was also the king of Bulgaria Boris III. We ignore what future she foretold him and if the king also understood the nefarious choices for both Bulgaria and himself. On August 9, 1943, the king visited Hitler, a stormy meeting for the reticences of the sovereign, and strangely, or perhaps not even strangely, some days after, on August 28, 1943, he died.

Over the years, Baba Vanga was known more and more so much to have been called the Nostradamus of the Balkans. A conquered fame when she was in life. In 1996 she died, but some years before they had built near her house the church dedicated to Saint Petka, protectress of the eyes and the blind. (1)


A notoriety increased in recent times, with a worldwide circulation and many articles on her in the main international newspapers. The reason is simple, many of his prophecies have come true: the increase in global temperatures, in 2004 the tsunami in Asia, the Kursk submarine tragedy, the September 11 attack on the twin towers, the Brexit and the not easy divination that the forty-fourth president of the United States would have been black. Indeed they are modern divinations, difficult and, unlike the most illustrious prescient Nostradamus, her predictions are current and sufficiently clear. Obviously, there is also some small misunderstanding. Barack Obama was the forty-fourth president of the United States and undoubtedly he was the first African American. But at the same time, she had prophesied that he would be the last American president. But Trump was able to defeat even the Nostradamus of the Balkans.

We know little about Baba Vanga's life, information is scarce and unconfirmed. she certainly had thousands of private talks, thus increasing his celebrity with word of mouth, but there is nothing documented.

The character of Baba Vanga is a fascinating subject for the artists, because, on the foundations of little news, they can build an imaginary and truthful character, enriching the legend of Baba Vanga.

Aleksandra Niemczyk, young student filmmaker with the teacher Béla Tarr in Sarajevo, with great elegance narrates the character in the film Baba Vanga presented at the 53rd Pesaro Film Festival.

The author narrates us the character of a young Baba Vanga, in a feminine world, showing us in images the world of a girl used to the black of her blind eyes:

"... I have always been interested in female stories, also those concerning the sentimental and sexual sphere of women ..." (2)

...

"... a sort of Balkan prophetess ... to show the character in a different way respect what was represented by the media ... a portrait of Baba Vanga before he had these powers ... and seeing her as a young woman..." (3)

The story begins in 1945, shot in a very close up a woman looks out the window while she is listening to the news of the launch of the atomic bomb. She cries, a still image blocks the look.

In a forest a wooden box slides slowly, a woman is pushing it. She takes too much time to transport it, exalting the slowness of gestures and existence.

Each scene has its own life, with a continuity of colour and style.

The director always frames Baba Vanga between two elements, like walls or trees, with her at the centre.

Inside the house, we see her building something, but she still does not speak, for a seer who has uttered so many prophecies appears as a contradiction, or it is the meaning of life. Silence is indeed meditative, meticulous, mystical. With the same calmness and the same asceticism she makes some gestures at home: arrange the dishes, or scratch some photos.

The film continues with the identical language: many close-ups, her long face, thin, big nose. He has no one to talk to, and she doesn't meet with anyone, yet she does not seem to be alone, she has an inner peace, which however does not correspond to the physical one.

Notes from a piano, a red curtain, the strong wind hit the house.

Time passes. Now she is blindfolded, she is blind, she recites the prophecies, and she is struck by a mystical crisis.

Outside there are people, she listens through a glass door: "what will I tell them?"

She is rocked from one wall to another, grainy electronic images, the light is back, the movements are even slower, she folds the clothes exasperatedly calm.

This is the Baba Vanga by Aleksandra Niemczyk. A real woman, a person with physical sufferings, lived in a remote place. It's not easy for a young woman to be blind and face a tough outside world. The gestures of the woman are slow, she defends herself by using the opposite of speed, slowness as protection to isolate herself in her world. She does not see and speaks little; this gives dignity when she utters words because perceived as special and rare.

The author's style has the charm of being elegant and refined. There are two main characteristics. She tells us during the presentation of the movie: "... slow cinema, I come from the world of the visual arts, more meditative, poetic cinema, the opposite of an action film, a sort of visual story rather than a series of information one after the other, that brings you in this kind of world, a little bit of dreams that is similar to what we experience when we sleep. I invite you to come with me to my slow world and be part of it." (4)

Slow cinema. The film is slow but slowness is not a defect, it is a way of life. Therefore the film is quiet, phlegmatic, the daily movement is calm, the opposite of speed and the high-sounding prophecies launched for the world.

The second characteristic is evident. The director comes from the visual arts and in fact, in the film, every image is experienced lives as a painting, like a representation of still life, like a photographic shot spot in a refined and careful location. This is why the woman is confined between two objects.

In the end, the words held up burst into the many prophecies of the future. Now she is quiet at home, the revelations are recited by a voiceover, a thunder, in:

...

2111 men will be robots

...

2288 we will travel over time

...

There are many prophecies and the end is: in 5079, the universe will end.

In 5079 the world will end. But the end of the world doesn't scare people mo more, did not the same Nostradamus prophesied the end of the world in 1999? Will not the day of the universal judgment also come?

So we are certain: the world will end, we just have to be cautious about the date.

Baba Vanga told us more frightful future event, current and political prophecies: like the invasion of Europe of Muslim armies, they will found an Islamic caliphate with capital in Rome. The Americans will save Europe again by bombarding Rome with climate bombs.

The photos with the scratches on the faces are the last scene. The faces are erased, perhaps blind people have the capacity to listen better to the life and people. Before dying she claimed that her gift would be passed to another ten-year-old girl, living in France and always blind.


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