Liuben is screening at OFN LGBTQIA+ Film Festival on Saturday, 16th November. BOOK TICKETS
Many LGBTQ+ people leave their home town behind as soon as they have the ability, finance or opportunity to escape, and some even leave their country behind as they search for freedom, hope and love. But no matter how far you go, your hometown or country always follows you, as do the memories you forged through childhood and teenage experiences. As we grow older and wiser, those memories call to us, and we often find ourselves returning to the place we once called home, retracing our childhood and teenage footsteps while looking upon that place with a fresh perspective through adult eyes. Venci Kostov’s Liuben is about memory, cultural change, social oppression and an uneasy and imperfect love. Liuben is a delicate, sensitive, complex and layered exploration of one man’s return to the home he couldn’t wait to escape, a home he now has the opportunity to view through adult eyes.
Victor (Dimitar Nikolov) hasn’t returned to his home town in Bulgaria for twelve years, following the separation of his mum and dad and his choice to live in Madrid with his mum. During those years, he has built a new life and career in Madrid and forged a relationship with an older partner who loves him dearly but whom he cheats on regularly with younger men. But now, due to his grandfather’s funeral, Victor finds himself back in his small rural hometown with the opportunity to retrace his childhood and teenage footsteps and reconnect with a dad he has never been able to talk to. Staying in the home his dad built for Victor and his mum before their separation, he reconnects with old friends and visits old haunts, like his school, which now lies derelict. But tension ripples through the run-down town, and it centres on the local orphanage for Roma teens and the village belief that Romani people are inundating and changing the town for the worse.
As Victor’s memories collide with the realities of town life, he meets the bold, energetic nineteen-year-old Liuben (Bojidar Iankov Asenov), a Roma boy who sells watermelons to earn a meagre income and lives in the local orphanage the townsfolk disdain. Liuben isn’t like any other young man he has ever met. He is a puzzle box of flirtatious energy, masked pain, constant lively chatter and devilish charm. He is just the distraction Victor needs and desires, and initially, Victor is happy to use his privilege to get closer to Liuben, feeding off Liuben’s flirtatious energy while internally debating whether he is bisexual or simply interested in escaping from the town. He is initially a mere distraction, but could he be more?
Liuben is an expectant father with a girlfriend who clearly doesn’t love him in a town where Roma children often vanish without a trace. He dreams of being a hairdresser in Berlin and will do anything to earn money to give to the expectant mother of his child. Luiben knows how things work in this town of haves and have-nots, and he knows the racism that threads through every aspect of town life: he experiences it daily. Victor intrigues Liuben and attracts him, but why would a wealthy man from Madrid be interested in a Roma boy with no prospects?
As Liuben and Victor’s worlds collide in the heat of a Bulgarian summer, the town’s secrets are exposed, and the oppression of the Roma community is laid bare, with Victor and Liuben caught in the middle.
Despite being a member of the European Union since 2007, Bulgaria, like many ex-eastern block countries, including Romania and Hungary, has a checkered history concerning equality, diversity and inclusion. In 2022, the EU commended Bulgaria on progress in some areas of inequality but stated, “LGBTI persons, as well as Roma, are the main victims of public expressions of hatred and prejudice. Hate speech against these groups also came in recent years from high-level politicians”. Venci Kostov’s film is at its strongest when exploring the daily reality for these groups and the shared experiences that place them outside of accepted Bulgarian society. While Victor may be privileged, he is still an outsider in the town. At the same time, Liuben is unwelcome and unwanted, a problem that must be solved by moving his people on, demolishing their houses or aiding smugglers to move them to Greece. While they carry economic differences that feed individual opportunities, Victor and Liuben are both problems in this small, insular town; the only difference is that Victor can leave, and Liuben is trapped. As a result, Liuben and Victor’s emerging relationship is wrapped in questions of power, intersectionality and personal goals that are never fully answered.
However, one thing is clear: Liuben and Victor’s relationship is transformational for both men and a precursor to events outside their control – events that will change one forever and lead the other down a road of no return. Kostov’s film deserves praise for attempting to cover a range of complex social and cultural issues in modern-day Bulgaria. Still, the bravery of his screenplay occasionally trips him up, especially in the final act, which feels rushed given the themes and discussions raised. However, despite this weakness, the performances of Dimitar Nikolov and Bojidar Iankov Asenov keep your eyes glued to the screen as they beautifully explore the internal feelings of two lost young men searching for something real in a town of rampant racism and institutional oppression. It is a town where Victor’s memories and sense of self were born, a place he couldn’t wait to leave and a community that leads him to a boy who changes everything. Kostov’s Liuben may not be perfect, but this is brave and bold filmmaking that deserves a considerable amount of praise.
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