By Werner Busch. It's an everyday encounter. A trivial flat tire. A short repair. Then the man from the city drives on. And still, an incredible amount of things have happened in the past couple of minutes. Though it was just a simple conversation the man had with a boy, who was standing at the edge of the road, having nothing more to do than herding a single cow. Two strangers talk. About where they come from, what they're doing. Obviously it's not only two different age groups but also two different modes of life that meet here. The man is a famous conductor. Two weeks ago, he tells the boy deeply moved, he gave a concert in Vienna and got ten minutes of standing ovations. The boy is not impressed: he recently witnessed the same thing in his local bar after tractor driver Mezekliev managed to pour down three litres of red wine in a single swig. Touché! But despite all their differences the viewer can soon feel a tender connection forming between these two diverse characters, a deeper sort of understanding for each other. Standing ovations can be received for any effort in life, no matter what kind. A different life is possible.

In his film director Stefan Chernev wonderfully combines the casual and incidental with the big questions of life and meaning. Without any unwanted obtrusiveness the camera finds allegorical images for the inner life of the characters. The conductor, leaning towards melancholy and deep longing, finds a fabulous counterpoint in the boy's mischievous abandon, so that the film can combine the two states of mind, most noticeably in the unexpected events within the last few minutes of the film. PIECE OF THE RAINBOW is one of those small and simple films which manage to do something very profound with seeming effortlessness: to change the audience's point of view just a little bit.

Links

• PIECE OF THE RAINBOW (BG 2008. Stefan Chernev)
• The Need to Communicate – An interview with Stefan Chernev
• From the Ruins Risen Newly – Tamar Noort about the Bulgarian film market