BLACK MONEY FOR WHITE NIGHTS World Cinema

North American Premiere

In BLACK MONEY FOR WHITE NIGHTS, Marina and Gosha are a middle-aged Bulgarian couple who have learned how to work the angles in a society where nearly everyone seems to be on the take. But when a dream vacation to Russia takes an unexpected turn, the small-time operators suddenly find themselves entangled in a scheme with a small fortune at stake. What begins as a darkly comic tale of bad money and worse luck gradually expands into a sharp, surprisingly moving portrait of a country where corruption has seeped into the fabric of everyday life. As Marina and Gosha scramble to recover, their dealings with family, friends, and fellow hustlers expose the uneasy compromises that bind them all together. The filmmakers skillfully balance social realism with mordant humor, transforming one couple’s misfortune into a quietly devastating morality play about complicity, consequence and what might remain when the money — and the illusions it buys — are finally gone. –Mimi Brody