The Optimists

Documentary film dealing with the rescue of Bulgarian Jews in the Second World War, based on sixteen years of research conducted by the director of the film, Jacky Comforty. He was born in Israel in the 1950s and is the son of Bulgarian exiles. Comforty’s research includes individual testimonies describing the events, a collection of documents from archives in Bulgaria, Israel and other countries and a collection of archival footage and photographs. The result is a film showing how the time of the Holocaust produced values, loyalty, solidarity and anti-racisms leading many Bulgarians to act against the Government and pro-Nazi Fascist Bulgarian Sovereign which was sending the Jews to their deaths in Nazi death camps. Winner of the Peace Film Award and Honorable Mention in the 2001 Berlin Festival.