Popfolk

During a drunken evening in a hotel in Bulgaria, whose current territory corresponds to the north of the ancient kingdom, a character who introduces himself as an “immortal Thracian” narrates in voiceover what will seem like a search for one’s roots on LSD. For example, we come across a “shaman” who snorts ants as a bracing “cocktail” and is firmly convinced that his glorious ancestors knew how to free themselves from the laws of gravity. Employed—in real life—in a tourist complex where, once in a while, he organises “period” costume re-enactments of ancient rites, he belongs to some kind of modern secret society dedicated to awakening the Thracian who sleeps in us all. Add a seductive “priestess” (moreover, specialised in climbing burial mounds) and a rustic cowboy, shake well, and drink Popfolk in one go - a caustic ethno-fiction in which Jivko Darakchiev and Perrine Gamot highlight the modern frailties of identity and their corollary: the fantasies of purity that lead straight to barbed-wire borders.

Emmanuel Chicon   

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