Burn, Burn, Little Fire

XVII century, Bulgaria is under Ottoman rule. Four men break into the house of the shepherd Karaivan, raping and killing his wife in full view of their child, Maria. To protect his daughter and to enact revenge, he raises Maria as a son, teaching her to fight and kill. But as Maria grows up, she longs for a different life.

While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.

Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.

The story of a gang of children growing up in a community of banished criminals, in a forgotten corner of the former Soviet Union. This community rejects the world outside. The only law it obeys… is its own. Against this backdrop two best friends, Kolyma and Gagarin, gradually become fierce enemies as they find themselves on opposite sides of the strict code of honour of the ‘honest criminal’ brotherhood.

A small band of multicultural convicts stages a daring escape from a WWII-era Siberian gulag, and embarks on a treacherous journey across five countries in a desperate race for freedom and survival.