Underplayed Gems

The Good Postman (2016)

The Good Postman poster
Directed by
Tonislav Hristov
Genre
documentary film
Country
Bulgaria, Finland
Runtime
1h 22m
Rating
6.9 of 10 from 11 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like thisWatch the trailer

or watch the trailer on YouTube

How it feels

A small Bulgarian village near the Turkish border is depopulated and poor. A local postman suggests inviting Syrian refugee families to move into the empty houses. The film watches the divided reactions of the remaining villagers as they argue over this proposal.

tragicomicobservationalslow-burnmelancholicwryintimatepolitically-tingedunderstated

What happens

The Good Postman is a 2016 documentary film directed by Tonislav Hristov. The film offers a tragicomic perspective on the 'refugee crisis' of 2015 from a small Bulgarian village located near the Turkish border. The village has suffered decades of economic and demographic decline. The handful of remaining residents observe refugee families from Syria and elsewhere as they cross the border, and ponder inviting them to settle in the vacant village houses. This proposal, advocated by the village postman and main protagonist Ivan, polarizes opinions and brings into focus the local people's own fears, hopes and disappointments. Although the film uses a semi-fictionalised plot, all characters portray themselves in a narrative which closely follows real events which unfolded in Bulgaria during 2014 and 2015. The film was largely positively received by international critics. An exception was a review by Neil Young of The Hollywood Reporter, who found the film to be "conventional in form and intermittently engaging in content." By contrast, Ștefan Dobroiu of Cineuropa called it "an amazing and complex portrait of life, politics and community." The film premiered in November 2016 at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival. The Good Postman was also the opening film at the April 2017 edition of the One World Human Rights Film Festival, held in Brussels. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.