Viktoria is a highly stylized Bulgarian film written and directed by Maya Vitkova. It swings through 30 years with a running time of 2 1/2 hours. Although the screenplay touches upon themes of family, parenting, mother-daughter relationships, and politics, it is essentially an exotic film about the power of yearning and the disappointments which accompany it.

Boryana (Irmena Chichikova) and her husband Ivan (Dimo Divov) are having intercourse in the same room where her zealous Communist mother (Mariana Krumova) sleeps. Although he wants to have a child his wife wants to escape to the West. She is quite taken with the advertisements in magazines where consumerism and freedom act as a lure for her soul.

Boryana is secretly doing everything she can to make sure she doesn't get pregnant. But once she does, this depressed woman drinks Cokes and smokes constantly. With a great deal of pain, she gives birth to a little girl who has no belly button. Viktoria is then chosen as "Socialist Bulgaria Baby of the Decade" and her parents are showered with notoriety and gifts including a modern apartment, a car, and limo service to/from school.

Still yearning to be on her own in the West, Boryana separates herself from her daughter and scorns her husband who does his best to nurture the infant. As a nine-year old, Viktoria (played by Daria Vitkova and then later by sibling Kalina Vitkova), continues to enjoy special privileges. Her best friend and most enthusiastic supporter is Comrader Zhivkov (Georgi Spasov), the Communist party leader who does all he can to make sure that her words and deeds will be taken to heart by the Bulgarian leaders. Viktoria also takes pleasure in the extravagant birthday parties which are held in her honor.

Writer and director Vitkova has created a film that circles around surrealism and satire with its depiction of the interaction between the Communist leaders of Bulgaria and the girl they see as their chosen one.
The closing sections of the film deal with the fall of communism in 1989 and the changes it brings into the lives of Viktoria and her family.

Catholic theologian Ronald Rolheiser when asked about the meaning of yearning responded: "Mostly, it is unconscious, a dark relentless pressure to reach beyond ourselves." This Bulgarian film vividly conveys the shattered dreams of those who are swept away by their most intense and alluring desires. Here mother and daughter wind up in the same state of deep disappointment.