Pismo do Amerika

I saw this movie in the international festival here in São Paulo. A travel showing a lot of beautiful places and faces you won't forget. I really loved it, specially the landscapes. Beautiful ***** of *****

I have seen this film on the festival called The Days of the European film and I was very surprised. This is so powerful, wonderful and amazing film!

It leads us to the small village in the middle of Bulgarian mountains. There is no civilization and traditions are still alive there. It shows Bulgarian grandmothers, who are as beautiful and wise as the Bulgarian mountains and woods all around. It puts the village with the grandmothers and Bulgarian nature in contrast with New York. And it tells us about young people from Bulgaria, who are emigrating to USA and to the West. So there are only old people now. And it asks: Who will lead Bulgaria in the future? Who will look after this old, beautiful and amazing country? Why don´t you in your homeland, young Bulgarian people?

This was my first Bulgarian film and I fell in love with Bulgaria after seeing it.

What a touching movie! This film will take you on a trip through a beautiful country: Bulgaria. Somehow a forgotten place in Europa. The film shows the ancient culture and beautiful scenery. The acting is superb and the situations often authentic.

All contemporary Bulgarian features share a common problem - they're more of a theater play than cinema. Although this movie really tries to escape the status quo, the feeling that I was watching a play rather than a movie left me only in a few moments - in the scenes with unprofessional actors, who really outperform the professional cast. Unfortunately, the director did not risk shooting the movie without the theatrical actors - I think it would be a lot better if she dared. Another malady of the Bulgarian cinema that plagues this film is the slow manner in which the story is told.

To summarise it: the story is strong, and the real people who play themselves are a bit of a compensation for the other shortcomings.

"Letter to America" was a thoroughly discussed picture in the year 2000 in Bulgaria. The fact that this movie was our representative at the 2000 Oscar awards, made the discussion even more ardent. Naturally, we didn't even get a nominee for Best Foreign Movie.Why? Because this production is not fit for the international(not to mention the American) audience. The movie is strictly Bulgarian, filled with our culture and made for our people. The journey of one person deep into the mountains in search for remedy, perhaps even for his roots, is pictured very well, but delivered poorly. Bottom of the line- our cinema industry is doing as bad as ever. But perhaps we took a step in the right direction...