THE LAST BLACK SEA PIRATES

The Skull and Crossbones flutters in the breeze on Karadere beach on the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria. Jack and his men are hunting for a legendary buried 19th-century treasure. But cracks soon appear in the picturesque façade of this offbeat fairytale and neo-liberalism, globalization and corruption rear their ugly heads. Investors backed by the brother of the country’s prime minister plan to build a tourist resort on the treasure island. Director Stoyanov skilfully plays with the romantic image of piracy, repeatedly puncturing the myth with the protagonists’ lived reality, and depicting a fragile social structure caught between the identities people dream up for themselves and the post-communist reality.