Vaklush

Documentary | 2022 | Col | 1h 40m

Project link

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Summary

"Vaklush" is a documentary, filmed during the period of 1998 until 2022 and contains unseen archival footage from the life of the famous spiritual leader and Teacher Vaklush Tolev. The film is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of his birth and is a story about the life path and ideas of one of the most enigmatic personalities of Bulgaria.

Vaklush Tolev is a theologian by education, lecturer and author of numerous volumes on religious, philosophical, cultural and historical topics. Having gone through the prisons and camps of the communist regime, for him suffering does not exist, but is rather development. Persecuted by the repressive State Security authorities as an "enemy of the people," he insists that evil does not exist, but is rather unevolved good. A graduate theologian, he comes to the idea that man is not a sinner, as religions teach, but a god in evolution.

After the fall of communism in Bulgaria in 1989, he was invited to teach at Plovdiv and Sofia universities. There, in his lectures on the history of religions, he often reminded his students of the inscription on the temple of Delphi; "Know thyself and thou shalt know the gods and the world." He himself experienced this knowledge and formulated his own teaching, which he called "The Way of Wisdom".

The film features:

Peter Stoyanov – President of Bulgaria, 1997-2002
Dr. Ilko Semerdjiev – Minister of Health for the period of 1999-2001
Prof. Dr. Maria Slavova – lawyer and lecturer at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski”, Sofia, Bulgaria
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ognyan Minchev – Political Scientist and Doctor of Sociological Sciences
Prof. Ivan Zhelev – theologian
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ivan Bachvarov – physicist and lecturer at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kiril Kolikov – mathematician and lecturer at Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski”
Dr. Ventsislav Zlatarev – philosopher
Prof. Todor Balkanski – linguist
Kalin Kalinov – engineer
Petko Atanasov – editor and scriptwriter at Bulgarian National Television
Boyko Stankushev – journalist
Iliana Slavova – journalist
Tsveta Nikolova – journalist at Bulgarian National Radio
Sia Georgieva – lawyer
Georgi Tolev – nephew of Vaklush Tolev
Jacqueline Toleva – daughter of Vaklush Tolev

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Director: Nikolay Vasilev
Type: Documentary
Year of completion: 2022
Country of origin: Bulgaria

Photos