Border

When Kapka Kassabova was a child, the borderzone between Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece was rumoured to be an easier crossing point into the West than the Berlin Wall so it swarmed with soldiers, spies and fugitives. On holidays close to the border on the Black Sea coast, she remembers playing on the beach, only miles from where an electrified fence bristled, its barbs pointing inwards toward the enemy: the holiday-makers, the potential escapees. Today, this densely forested landscape is no longer heavily militarised, but it is scarred by its past. In ‘Border’, Kapka Kassabova sets out on a journey through a hidden corner of the continent, and meets the people of this triple border – Bulgarians, Turks, Greeks, indigenous Balkan Muslims, and the latest wave of refugees fleeing conflict further afield.