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Zift (film)
Encyclopedia
Zift is 2008 black-and-white
Bulgaria
n film that combines neo-noir
and black comedy
with socialist retro motifs; it is based on Vladislav Todorov's 2006 eponymous novel who also wrote the script. Zift was directed by Javor Gardev and premiered on 27 June 2008 at the Moscow International Film Festival
, where it won a Silver George for Best Director and the Best Film Prize of the Russian Film Clubs Federation.
The film stars Zahari Baharov as Moth, the main character who organizes a robbery out of love and money and is imprisoned before the 9 September coup d'état
for a murder he did not commit. Moth is released from jail in the 1960s to meet the new and unfamiliar reality of socialist Sofia
. Zifts name is derived from the Arabic
loanword zift or dzift, meaning "asphalt
" "bitumen" or "black pitch
", once a popular chewing substance among the gangs in Sofia
asphalt jungle; the word is also claimed to be urban slang
for shit
.
s. The story is presented chronologically here.
Moth is an ordinary guy from Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. At school, he falls in love with the beautiful Ada (Tanya Ilieva), later nicknamed "Mantis". Out of a desire for money, he agrees to work for a shady neighbour known as Slug (Vladimir Penev). The two plot the theft of a black diamond
from the white émigré
jeweller Vlad the Bijou's house. The robbery ends in failure as Moth is wounded by The Bijou and captured by the police; Slug manages to escape and is never charged. There is no trace of the diamond
, and as Vlad is killed by Slug during the robbery, the police never get to know of its existence.
In the Sofia prison, Moth, besides working out to patriotic Soviet music
, also befriends his older roommate Van Wurst the Eye (Mihail Mutafov), so nicknamed because he has been wearing an ocular prosthesis
after losing one of his eyes during a robbery in Barcelona
. Besides being an avid boxer
and arm wrestler
, Van Wurst also has his philosophical
views on life, such as a theory about the destructive power of women, which he shares with Moth. Shortly before being released, Van Wurst hangs himself
, claiming "there is no hope outside". While in prison, Moth is informed by Ada that his son Leonid was born and died of heart failure while still very young.
As Moth is released from prison afterwards, he picks up his civil clothes and his year-old ball of chewing bitumen from the cloakroom and does not miss the chance to swear at an obnoxious guard, who headbutt
s him to unconsciousness. Outside, Moth is picked by a warrant officer and a younger soldier who drive him in a Chaika to the Baths
. In the damp basement of the Baths, he is interrogated and tortured by Slug, now a locally influential member of the communist nomenklatura
, who believes Moth knows the location of the black diamond. Moth denies and even doubts the diamond ever existed; he later manages to escape, but not before he consumes iridium
-poisoned wine offered to him by Slug.
Wandering drunk and intoxicated around Sofia and seeking his old girlfriend Ada, Moth gets to witness the new socialist reality he had only heard about on the prison radio: the look of the city has changed with The Largo
and the Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum
, but the nature of the people has remained essentially the same. The protagonist meets a variety of bizarre characters, such as drug-doing medics, weird patients and local drunks. He ends up in the Saint Nicholas Church, where he meets the priest who had baptized him (Đoko Rosić); the priest points him to Ada's current whereabouts as a performer in a nightclub
under the stage name
Gilda (a reference to Gilda
, as Ada also performs a Bulgarian-language version of Put the Blame on Mame).
Moth finds Ada, who is now living with Slug, and has sex
with her. He later reveals to Ada that he is aware of the diamond's location: in Vlad the Bijou's coffin
. The two go to the graveyard, where Moth first insists to visit the grave of his son. However, he realizes that it is another Leonid's grave (his mother had been buried in the same grave very recently) and that he never actually had a son. At the same time he notices Slug standing behind him with Ada, who had apparently betrayed him. The three head to The Bijou's grave; while digging, Moth kills Slug with his pickaxe
, but is fatally wounded and stunned by Ada a moment later.
Moth wakes up in the gravediggers' shed. Realizing his impending death, he asks for his bitumen in order not to die with a foul breath. Tearing the bitumen apart, Moth reveals the black diamond had been stashed within it for all those years. He swallows the diamond and dies.
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
n film that combines neo-noir
Neo-noir
Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s.-History:The term Film Noir was coined by...
and black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
with socialist retro motifs; it is based on Vladislav Todorov's 2006 eponymous novel who also wrote the script. Zift was directed by Javor Gardev and premiered on 27 June 2008 at the Moscow International Film Festival
Moscow International Film Festival
Moscow International Film Festival , is the film festival first held in Moscow in 1959. From its inception to 1995 it was held every second year in July, alternating with the Karlovy Vary festival. The festival has been held annually since 1995....
, where it won a Silver George for Best Director and the Best Film Prize of the Russian Film Clubs Federation.
The film stars Zahari Baharov as Moth, the main character who organizes a robbery out of love and money and is imprisoned before the 9 September coup d'état
Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944
The Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944, also known as the 9 September coup d'état and called in pre-1989 Bulgaria the National Uprising of 9 September or the Socialist Revolution of 9 September was a change in the Kingdom of Bulgaria's administration and government carried out on the eve of 9 September...
for a murder he did not commit. Moth is released from jail in the 1960s to meet the new and unfamiliar reality of socialist Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
. Zifts name is derived from the Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
loanword zift or dzift, meaning "asphalt
Asphalt
Asphalt or , also known as bitumen, is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits, it is a substance classed as a pitch...
" "bitumen" or "black pitch
Pitch (resin)
Pitch is the name for any of a number of viscoelastic, solid polymers. Pitch can be made from petroleum products or plants. Petroleum-derived pitch is also called bitumen. Pitch produced from plants is also known as resin. Products made from plant resin are also known as rosin.Pitch was...
", once a popular chewing substance among the gangs in Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
asphalt jungle; the word is also claimed to be urban slang
Slang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
for shit
Shit
Shit is usually considered vulgar and profane in Modern English. As a noun it refers to fecal matter and as a verb it means to defecate or defecate in; in the plural it means diarrhea...
.
Plot
Zifts plot unfolds non-linearly: although the main story after Moth's release from prison is told chronologically, the events leading to his imprisonment are revealed by means of numerous relatively long and not necessarily chronological flashbackFlashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
s. The story is presented chronologically here.
Moth is an ordinary guy from Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. At school, he falls in love with the beautiful Ada (Tanya Ilieva), later nicknamed "Mantis". Out of a desire for money, he agrees to work for a shady neighbour known as Slug (Vladimir Penev). The two plot the theft of a black diamond
Carbonado
Carbonado, commonly known as the "Black Diamond", is a natural polycrystalline diamond found in alluvial deposits in the Central African Republic and Brazil. Its natural colour is black or dark grey, and it is more porous than other diamonds....
from the white émigré
White Emigre
A white émigré was a Russian who emigrated from Russia in the wake of the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War, and who was in opposition to the contemporary Russian political climate....
jeweller Vlad the Bijou's house. The robbery ends in failure as Moth is wounded by The Bijou and captured by the police; Slug manages to escape and is never charged. There is no trace of the diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
, and as Vlad is killed by Slug during the robbery, the police never get to know of its existence.
In the Sofia prison, Moth, besides working out to patriotic Soviet music
Soviet music
Soviet music is the music composed and produced in the USSR. It varied in many genres and epochs. Although the majority of it was written by Russians, it was also influenced by various national minorities in the Soviet Republic. The Soviet state supported musical institutions, but also carried out...
, also befriends his older roommate Van Wurst the Eye (Mihail Mutafov), so nicknamed because he has been wearing an ocular prosthesis
Ocular prosthesis
An ocular prosthesis or artificial eye replaces an absent natural eye following an enucleation, evisceration, or orbital exenteration. The prosthetic fits over an orbital implant and under the eyelids. Often referred to as a glass eye, the ocular prosthesis roughly takes the shape of a convex...
after losing one of his eyes during a robbery in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
. Besides being an avid boxer
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
and arm wrestler
Arm wrestling
Arm wrestling is a sport with two participants. Each participant places one arm on a surface with their elbows bent and touching the surface, and they grip each other's hand...
, Van Wurst also has his philosophical
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
views on life, such as a theory about the destructive power of women, which he shares with Moth. Shortly before being released, Van Wurst hangs himself
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
, claiming "there is no hope outside". While in prison, Moth is informed by Ada that his son Leonid was born and died of heart failure while still very young.
As Moth is released from prison afterwards, he picks up his civil clothes and his year-old ball of chewing bitumen from the cloakroom and does not miss the chance to swear at an obnoxious guard, who headbutt
Headbutt
A headbutt is a strike with the head, typically involving the use of robust parts of the cranium as areas of impact. Effective headbutting revolves around striking a sensitive area with a less sensitive area, such as striking the nose of an opponent with the forehead...
s him to unconsciousness. Outside, Moth is picked by a warrant officer and a younger soldier who drive him in a Chaika to the Baths
Sofia Public Mineral Baths
The Sofia Public Mineral Baths or the Central Mineral Baths is a landmark in the centre of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, a city known for the mineral springs in the area...
. In the damp basement of the Baths, he is interrogated and tortured by Slug, now a locally influential member of the communist nomenklatura
Nomenklatura
The nomenklatura were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc., whose positions were granted only with approval by the...
, who believes Moth knows the location of the black diamond. Moth denies and even doubts the diamond ever existed; he later manages to escape, but not before he consumes iridium
Iridium
Iridium is the chemical element with atomic number 77, and is represented by the symbol Ir. A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum family, iridium is the second-densest element and is the most corrosion-resistant metal, even at temperatures as high as 2000 °C...
-poisoned wine offered to him by Slug.
Wandering drunk and intoxicated around Sofia and seeking his old girlfriend Ada, Moth gets to witness the new socialist reality he had only heard about on the prison radio: the look of the city has changed with The Largo
Largo, Sofia
The Largo is an architectural ensemble of three Socialist Classicism edifices in central Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, designed and built in the 1950s with the intention to become the city's new representative centre...
and the Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum
Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum
The Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum in Sofia, Bulgaria was built in 1949 to hold the embalmed body of the Communist leader Georgi Dimitrov . The construction of the Mausoleum was begun right after the news of Dimitrov's death. It was built for a record time of just 6 days, the time it took for...
, but the nature of the people has remained essentially the same. The protagonist meets a variety of bizarre characters, such as drug-doing medics, weird patients and local drunks. He ends up in the Saint Nicholas Church, where he meets the priest who had baptized him (Đoko Rosić); the priest points him to Ada's current whereabouts as a performer in a nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
under the stage name
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
Gilda (a reference to Gilda
Gilda
Gilda is a 1946 American black-and-white film noir directed by Charles Vidor. It stars Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth in her signature role as the ultimate femme fatale. The film was noted for cinematographer Rudolph Mate's lush photography, costume designer Jean Louis' wardrobe for Hayworth , and...
, as Ada also performs a Bulgarian-language version of Put the Blame on Mame).
Moth finds Ada, who is now living with Slug, and has sex
Sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
with her. He later reveals to Ada that he is aware of the diamond's location: in Vlad the Bijou's coffin
Coffin
A coffin is a funerary box used in the display and containment of dead people – either for burial or cremation.Contemporary North American English makes a distinction between "coffin", which is generally understood to denote a funerary box having six sides in plan view, and "casket", which...
. The two go to the graveyard, where Moth first insists to visit the grave of his son. However, he realizes that it is another Leonid's grave (his mother had been buried in the same grave very recently) and that he never actually had a son. At the same time he notices Slug standing behind him with Ada, who had apparently betrayed him. The three head to The Bijou's grave; while digging, Moth kills Slug with his pickaxe
Pickaxe
A pickaxe or pick is a hand tool with a hard head attached perpendicular to the handle.Some people make the distinction that a pickaxe has a head with a pointed end and a flat end, and a pick has both ends pointed, or only one end; but most people use the words to mean the same thing.The head is...
, but is fatally wounded and stunned by Ada a moment later.
Moth wakes up in the gravediggers' shed. Realizing his impending death, he asks for his bitumen in order not to die with a foul breath. Tearing the bitumen apart, Moth reveals the black diamond had been stashed within it for all those years. He swallows the diamond and dies.
Cast and characters
- Zahari Baharov as Lev Kaludov Zhelyazkov, better known as Moth (Молеца, Moletsa) or Leo
- Tanya Ilieva as Ada or Mantis (Богомолката, Bogomolkata), Moth's femme fataleFemme fataleA femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
pre-prison girlfriend - Vladimir Penev as Slug (Плужека, Pluzheka), Moth's accomplice in the failed diamond theft and Mantis' later lover
- Mihail Mutafov as Van Wurst the Eye (Ванвурст Окото, Vanvurst Okoto), Moth's prison roommate
- Đoko Rosić as The Priest
Awards
- Moscow International Film FestivalMoscow International Film FestivalMoscow International Film Festival , is the film festival first held in Moscow in 1959. From its inception to 1995 it was held every second year in July, alternating with the Karlovy Vary festival. The festival has been held annually since 1995....
- Silver George for Best Director
- Best Film Prize of the Russian Film Clubs Federation
- Golden Chest
- Jury's Special Prize
- Galya Bachvarova Foundation Prize for Yavor Gardev
- Union of Bulgarian Film Workers for operator Emil Hristov
- Bulgarian submission for the 81st Academy Awards81st Academy AwardsThe 81st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2008 and took place February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST...
' Award for Best Foreign Language FilmAcademy Award for Best Foreign Language FilmThe Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
Broadcasts
In May 2009, the film's producers announced HBO had bought the broadcast rights for the film. The film was the first Bulgarian film to be broadcast on HBO.External links
- Official website
- Zift trailer at YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
(English subtitles)