Tobacco memories
Directed by Manca Filak
Synopsis
The villages in southwest Bulgaria have long been known for the cultivation and production of tobacco. Muslim Pomaks, still engaged in this work, are facing a decline due to the low purchase price of dry tobacco leaves and difficult working conditions. Tobacco manufacture, once an element of identification of the villages, is now becoming an element of the past, a part of social memory fused with multiple connotations and meanings. Tobacco Memories follows Fatme and her family in the village of Debren and shows the spatial and material dimensions of tobacco production, and the family’s relationship to the slowly disappearing lifestyle.