The short film 'Freckles' by Nevena Nikolova is a tightly coiled, rather small film that explodes with emotional multiplicity. Starting as a folklorically classic scenario, a hermit healer living on the margins, a desperate young mother in need of some protection, it gradually grows into a delicate exploration of trauma, the female gender, and the radicalism of connection.

 

The central point of the movie is an electric and delicately drawn relationship between Zaka (Svetlana Yancheva) and Katya (Neda Spasova). Their bond forms not by exposition or dramatic revelation, but by paying attention: glances that are held a moment too long, hands that hover before they go to touch, breath that is taken in a cramped kitchen smelling of herbs and smoke. Nikolova is silent but not empty, and both actresses master it with the talent of a fine instrument.

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Zaka, who is portrayed by Svetlana Yancheva, is a sculpture made of the earth: stoic, sharp-edged, and having lived a lifetime, both geographically and morally, on the edges of her village. Katya, the character by Neda Spasova, appears just opposite in fright at the entrance of Zaka. The vulnerability of Spasova’s performance is shocking: how Katya never lets her shoulders drop, how fear and hope mix in her eyes. She is a woman who is only just starting what Zaka has already lived through her existence, somebody whose trauma is not yet old, whose desperation has not yet been softened.

The true genius of the film is in the way in which Nikolova gives Zaka and Katya a chance to transform one another.