Canary Season (1993)

This is the true story of the "lost generation" (1960-1990) of Bulgaria. Angry and defiant upon his release from prison, young Marlin confronts his mother Lily and violently forces her to reveal the truth of the horrors that she had hoped Marlin would never know. A series of flashbacks begins by catching the naïve spirit of her years during the early 60's in a Bulgarian beach resort before the brutal repression of the communist regime. After her first love is drafted, Lily falls victim to Ivan, an influential official's son who rapes and impregnates her. Forced to marry her rapist, her mother-in-law frames her as a prostitute and sends her to a labor camp where she is forced to endure torture and humiliation. After her release she flees to the city where she accidentally witnesses a political murder, and is committed to a psychiatric asylum where she sleeps with a doctor to gain her release. CANARY SEASON is an important account of a grim point in human history.