The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner (Светът е голям и спасение дебне отвсякъде, Svetat e golyam i spasenie debne otvsyakade) is a 2008 Bulgarian film. It is a loose adaptation of the autobiographical novel of the same name by Bulgarian-German writer Ilija Trojanow.
Aleksander "Sashko" Georgiev is a Bulgarian-German living with his father Vasil ("Vasko") and his mother Yana. The three are in a bad car crash on the Autobahn — Vasil and Yana are killed, but Sashko survives, albeit with retrograde amnesia. Sashko's grandfather Bai Dan, a Backgammon fanatic who still lives in Bulgaria, receives a call about the accident and travels to Germany to look after his grandson and try to help him regain his memories. Bai Dan decides to take Sashko on a trip across Europe on a tandem bicycle in hopes of jogging his memory by visiting places that Sashko and his parents had been in the past. The present day story is intercut with flashbacks to Sashko's youth with his parents as they decided to sneak out of Communist Bulgaria in search of a better life in the West.
Tropes include:
- Amnesiac Hero: Sashko gets amnesia from a hit to the head in a car crash at the start of the film. The rest of the story involves his grandfather's attempts to help him recover his memory.
- Beyond the Impossible: How the climactic scene plays out. Bai Dan and Sashko have a backgammon competition in their hometown to determine who will be the "King of Backgammon". They are at a stalemate for hours until sunset, at which point the rule is that they roll the two dice one more time, and whoever rolls the highest number wins. Bai Dan rolls two sixes, the highest possible number. Sashko does his roll — and part of one dice breaks off, giving him a six and seven. He overtly describes this as a miracle.
- Flashback Effects: The flashback scenes are given a sepia Color Wash.
- Get Out!: Dr. Schreiber tells Bai Dan this in reaction to him and Sashko singly loudly in the middle of the night at the hospital. He even brings in a security guard to force Bai Dan to leave.
- Puppy Love: As a child in the Italian refugee camp, Sashko has a romantic relationship with a girl named Marta.
- Shipper on Deck: Seeing how well the two hit it off, Bai Dan basically orders Sashko to go talk with Maria.
- Tandem Parasite: Sashko, who is sitting in the back of the tandem bike, notices that his grandfather Bai Dan isn't pedaling nearly as hard as he is. Bai Dan insists that he has to concentrate on the more important task of steering.
