Mezhdu relsite (1964)

At the Brussels railway station, a Bulgarian antifascist bids farewell to his daughter Elitza. Yannis, his Greek comrade, will take her home. The train pulls out, and the little girl waves a last goodbye to her father. He is remaining in occupied Belgium to fight the Nazis. At Sofia railway station two passengers part. Elitza goes to her grandmother and to her uncle Hristo. They surround her with loving care and tenderness. Every morning, Uncle Hristo takes her on his bicycle to the best French college, where her grandmother has enrolled her. At the college, the child befriends a small Jewess Greta, who soon leaves for Egypt together with her parents. Elitza leaves alone. Uncle Hristo is arrested for subversive activities, and her grandmother is sent into internal exile to a small town near the country's southern border. Elitza is taken ill and is sent for a treatment to a seaside sanatorium. There a sailor brings her a letter from her father and a gift: a tiny ballerina pirouetting on top of a musical box. The police interrogate Elitza and she runs away from the sanatorium. No matter where she is, however, the girl never abandons the hope that her father will return, brought back by the "crystal train of freedom", and they both will set out around the world all their own... When Elitza joins her grandmother in a southern town, the German have already arrived in Bulgaria and fight at the Metaxas Line. Yannis is among the Greek prisoners of war brought to the town. This is the last Elitza sees him, as the German kill him before her eyes. One day the police told her that Gestapo has been executed her father as a resistance leader in Belgium. Hristo escapes from prison and comes to the town. Elitza helps him hide on the abandoned Metaxas Line. On his way back, she learns from the interrogators that Uncle Hristo has been killed. The slender girl survives all these experiences, like a blade of grass, which has taken root between the railway tracks. She keeps seeking escape in an imaginary world where people are good.