Bulgarian director Yavor Gurdev won the best director Silver George award at the 30th Moscow International Film Festival with his debut film Zift.

The film is considered a mixture of neo-noir and sots-art and tells the story of Moth, who was unfairly sentenced for murder shortly before the beginning of the communist era in Bulgaria in 1944. Now, sometime in the 1960’s, Moth is being freed on parole and finds himself in totalitarian Sofia, a world that he knows only indirectly via the newspaper read in prison. The film follows Moth's first night of freedom and his chase against time, trying to avoid fate.

The jury liked the combination of action and biting satire in the film, a screen version of the debut novel of Bulgarian writer Vladislav Todorov.

Gurdev’s award is the greatest success Bulgarian cinematography had achieved at the Moscow film festival. The film also received Russian Film Clubs Federation Best Film award.

Zift is Gardev’s first film, but he has already gained the fame of a prominent Bulgarian theatrical director, who had put up plays on the stages of Sliven regional theatre, Little City Theatre Off The Canal, Theatre-laboratory Sfumato, Theatre 199 and National Theatre Ivan Vazov.

According to netinfo.bg, Zift will be screened in Bulgaria in the autumn of 2008.