Dante’s Heaven / Рая на Данте
by Dimitar Radev
(Fiction, Bulgaria, 2020, 112’, C, En ST)
with Vladimir Penev, Radina Borshosh
Dante’s life (64) has lost its meaning after the death of his mother and his retirement. The one thing that motivates Dante to keep on living is to take revenge on his mother’s tormentors when after her death he finds out closely guarded secrets from the past. He meets Raya/Heaven/ (18), the granddaughter of one of the rapists. Will she ignite his desire for revenge or lead him to forgiveness?
« Dante’s Heaven tells a story of a man whose father was imprisoned in Belene labour camp without any sentence, and his mother was raped in the militia. This story is a document, not fiction, but I prefer to make it in a fictional feature film because most of the victims and their children are already dead so that the film could make the memory of them living in the next generations. » Dimitar Radev