Zeit der Gewalt

I attended the North American premiere of this film at the Seattle International Film Festival in 1989. It remains 20 years later as one of my fondest cinematic experiences.

This is film making at its best. An epic with intensely drawn characters and exceptionally memorable scenes. Essentially, the Bulgarian Lawrence of Arabia and a film worthy of comparison to Lean's masterpiece.

Many of the comments about this film are from Bulgarians, and I cannot personalize the film in the same manner that they have done so. To me, as an American, the film explored the issue of why Christianity and Islam were in inherent conflict when they are in many respects similar. When I saw the film in 1989 this was purely an interesting intellectual question. After 9/11 the film has taken on a whole new dimension for me. Clearly with 9/11, the wars that have followed and the wave of Islamic terrorism across the globe, the issue remains well worth exploring.

If anyone out there can tell me how to get a copy of the film, please email me.

As a Serb, I always wonder why my country never made any movie about islamisation of Balkans through 14-20 century. Then I stumble on this Bulgarian epic. For anyone who want to explore darkest moments from history of Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians & other nonmuslim nations under Turkish government, this is a must see film. But the best thing in this movie is solution which he offers. You begin to understand it in last quarter of movie when things begins to unravel. And at least for me, priest in this movie is one of the best clerics I ever watch. I strongly recommend it to everyone except to those stubborn (crypto)jihadist, who may get sick from it (which can be actually good reason for them to watch), and who think that Turkish occupation is second best thing in world history.

This movie explains the story of the people that lived in the region of Rodopi mountains in Bulgaria during the 17-th century. This is a region in south-central contemporary Bulgaria. All the facts presented in the movie are true, I don't mean now the small details but the general idea - What used to happen during the period, that the movie describes. I read somewhere a comment for the movie, sounding like this: "The movie is interesting, but the happenings are not real." Well I will give you one incontestable fact in favor of the main line of the movie: Bulgaria falls finally under the Otoman conquerors in 1396 and gains its independence in 1878. The population before the first date is only consisted of orthodox Christians. Now in contemporary Bulgaria, besides the ethnic Turks also known as Bulgarian Turks, there is a specific group of people that speak Bulgarian language as their native language but their fate is Islam. These people are mainly located in the Rodopi mountains, where the story of the movie goes. History of the Balkans is full of blood and violence. We can live now in peace and on good terms, but this doesn't mean to strike the history out, because we all should know where we come from.

The best Bulgarian movie ever made-well,there is a lot of propaganda of course,but still the movie is excellent.Bulgarians must remember their history and origins.The performance of Karaibrahim and the priest is very good and the soundtrack is not bad also.I have never seen a movie like this made in the neighbour countries of Yugoslavia,Romania or even Greece.I guess the communist regime injected a big amount of money in this project-everybody knows that at this time half a million ethnic Turkish Bulgarian citizens were forced to leave the country and the other part were repressed,names changed.Still it is a really emotional artwork!

What could i say about this magnificent movie? This is the story about courage people, who live between the Orient and the West Europe. There is no place like that and if you see this movie you will understand that. In the end of 14th century the Bulgarians lost their independence. The conquerors are Osman Turks. Their device is " Burn, kill and destroy "! Before them the Bulgarians have the strongest and most powerful country on the Balkans and in all East Europe. Their culture is advanced, they have the first alphabet among the Slavs. Now a lot of the Slavs have their Cyrillic alphabet- Serbs,Rusians,Ukranians,Belarusians,Macedonians( that belong to the Bulgarian ethnic group )and else.They defend bravely and selflessly their territories but finally lost the war.The Bulgarians are orthodox Christians but the Turks are Muslims.Important part of the aggressor's politics is to convert Bulgarians to Mohamme-denims,because only thereby they could become the slaves of Turk's empire. So,this will be the the biggest hardship for this breve and selfless Balkan people. Shell they survive and defend their culture and lives you will understand only if you see the movie. Believe me, this movie will crush you down!Do not miss it!