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12th Sofia International Film Festival 2008
By Ron Holloway | August 19, 2008
Ask Stefan Kitanov, director of the 12th Sofia International Film Festival (6 16 March 2008), if he feels that “New Bulgarian Cinema” had now officially come of age, he will cite the premiere screening of Stefan Komandarev’s Svetat e golyam i spasenie debne otvsyakad (The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner). “We had to open the upper balcony of the big hall in the National Palace of Culture (NDK) to accommodate an audience upwards of 4,000,” he stated with a note of pride from the NDK stage. “That’s never happened before in the history of our festival!
A Bulgarian-German-Slovenian-Hungarian coproduction based on an autobiographical novel by Ilija Trojanov (published in 1996), The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner retraces the escape route taken by the Trojanov family during their flight from Bulgaria in 1971 by way of Yugoslavia to Italy and then on to Germany. Recounted in the film through the experiences of the grandfather, who thereby helps his grown grandson to recover from amnesia after a near-fatal car accident, the film obviously struck a familiar chord in the experiences of the viewing audience. Stefan Komandarev, together with lead actor Miki Manojlovic (a Serb in the grandfather role), were given a standing ovation. Later, The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner received not only the Audience Award, but also the Kodak Award for Best Bulgarian Feature Film.
SIFF 2008 also opened in the NDK with a rousing tribute to Rangel Vulchanov, the 80-year-old Bulgarian master, whose latest feature film, A dnes nakade? (Which Way Today?) (2007), was shown back-to-back with his earlier A sega nakade? (Which Way Now?) (1988). By employing a time-honored stage formula for a collective actors’ exam for entrance to an academy (along the lines of the hit musical Chorus Line), the original candidates back in 1988 were asked (among other things) to weigh their moral principles against the capitalist demands of a free economic market in post-communist society.
Then, in the 2007 sequel, Vulchanov assembles the same personalities once again to see if they had held to previously professed principles and how they view their lives today. Although this amusing game of role-playing can hardly be equated with documentary realism, still the collective pain of adjusting to democratic choice and a free-wheeling economy had obviously taken its toll in the lost ideals of some of the participants. In Which Way Now? Vulchanov deftly pairs previous statements from Which Way Today? with current opinions by the same individuals to underscore how life itself is often the great leveler of pretence and hubris.
Two previously awarded Bulgarian documentaries by young filmmaking talent were also spotlighted at SIFF 2008, both exemplary of typical absurd humor found in real-life rural situations, a distinct national trait in Bulgarian cinema. In Andrei Paounov’s Problemat s komarite i drugi istorii (The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories), awarded at last year’s Karlovy Vary festival, oversized mosquitos (nicknamed “zanzar” for their nerve-racking buzz) torment the population in the town of Belene on the Danube so much that smoke-blowing extermination trucks regularly fumigate the streets on humid summer days.
Among the colorful characters in the film is a friendly Cuban worker, who was stranded here in socialist times when plans for a nuclear plant were launched and then abandoned. Others are an Italian priest caring for a small flock of elderly parishioners, a piano tuner confessing his love for both Chopin and boogie-woogie; a dance instructor helping the populace to break the daily monotony, and a double-talking town mayor who had formerly supervised a nearby forced labor camp under communist rule.
Similarly, in Boris Despodov’s Corridor #8, a rib-tickling, tongue-in-cheek documentary awarded at this year’s Berlinale, the focus is on the stumbling efforts of the European Union to construct an asphalt highway on the traces of the ancient Via Egnatia, a long forgotten road dating from Roman times that had once effectively linked the Black Sea with the Adriatic. Today, the EU plans for a modern highway corridor – running through Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, and Albania – come across as an absurdly funny international proposal despite cogent arguments for a quicker traffic route and better cross-country communication. But when local citizens in the respective countries are asked what they think of “Corridor #8” (as the road is noted in EU protocol), most can’t figure out where the new highway is going and why it is even considered necessary in the first place!
As both Bulgarian film producer and Sofia festival director, Stefan Kitanov promotes New Bulgarian Cinema with the flair and confidence of a public relations professional. Visiting critics and festival representatives were informed that at the forthcoming Sixth NY-Bulgarian Film Festival of Bulgarian Films, scheduled April 4-19 in the Scandinavian House in Manhattan, the public could see 15 films (features, documentaries, shorts, animation) in an all-embracing national program. Further, the New York event would open with Ludmil Todorov’s Shivachki (Seamstresses), awarded the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at SIFF 2008. In this melodrama three naive young village girls, all seamstresses and the best of friends, seek their fortune in Sofia, only to be hardened by the compromises they are forced to make along the way.
Another new Bulgarian feature film of both literary and historical interest was Kostadin Bonev’s Voinen Korespondent (War Correspondent), based on the dispatches filed by eminent journalist-writer Yordan Yovkov from the front in 1917 during the First World War. Yovkov’s description of cholera among dying soldiers parallels similar dispatches filed by the American war correspondent John Reed in his seminal book War in Eastern Europe: Travels Through the Balkans in 1915 (published in 1916).
Galas and Awards
As in the past, the Sofia public was offered a fill of top international productions among the 200-odd screenings in six venues scattered across the city. Further, the SIFF went on the road afterwards with additional screenings in the cities of Plovdiv and Burgas. Among the Galas and Avant-Premieres were such box office draws as Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (USA), Nikita Mikhalkov’s 12 (Russia), Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There (USA) on Bob Dylan, Milos Forman’s Goya’s Ghost (Spain/USA) and Volker Schloendorff’s Ulzhan (France/Germany/Kazakhstan), both of the last named films scripted by Jean–Claude Carrière. Present to receive their Sofia Municipality Awards for Contribution to World Cinema were Nikita Mikhalkov and Jean–Claude Carrière.
Many films in the SIFF sidebars were programmed specifically for the committed festival cineaste. Among the top directorial names in the European Screen section were Poland’s Andrzej Wajda (Katyn), Hungary’s Bela Tarr (The Man from London), and Austria’s Ulrich Seidl (Import Export). This year’s double decker Focus section spotlighted Russia and the Netherlands. Audience attractions in the Focus on Russia included Alexander Sokurov’s Alexandra and Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol. And in the Focus on the Netherlands Jos Stelling was honored with a retrospective tribute, in addition to serving as president of the international jury. Crowds gathered early for his Duska, a black comedy about a film festival conman that was shot partially in the Ukraine.
In the Main Program (12 films in competition) the audience was treated to award winners from key international festivals. From the Cannes Competition came Fatih Akin’s Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven) (Germany), along with Lucia Puenza’s XXY (Argentina/Spain/France) seen in the International Week of the Critics. From the New Directors section at San Sebastian arrived Threes Anna’s Vogel kan niet vliegen (The Bird Can’t Fly) (Netherlands/South Africa/UK). From the Panorama section in the Berlinale was booked Anna Melikian’s Rusalka (Mermaid) (Russia) and Stefan Arsenijevic’s Ljubav i drugi zlo (Love And Other Crimes) (Serbia/Germany/Austria/Slovenia). And from the Cottbus Festival of Central and Eastern European Films came Marc Meyer’s Wir sagen Du! Schatz (Family Rules!), starring Bulgarian émigré actor Samuel Fintzi, son of popular veteran Bulgarian actor Yitzhak Fintzi. Anna Melikian’s Mermaid, cited for the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at the Berlinale, was awarded the Grand Prix for Best Feature Film at Sofia. The fairy tale story of a girl who arrives in Moscow from nowhere in particular to have an impact for better or worse on those she comes into contact with, Mermaid is sprinkled with humorous characters and absurd twists.
Set in South Africa, The Bird Can’t Fly (the title refers to ostriches on a breeding farm) marked prominent Dutch theater director Threes Anna’s debut as a filmmaker. An allegorical tale with poetic touches, the focus is on a woman who returns to the Fairlands for the burial of her estranged daughter, only to discover that she has to contend with a 10-year-old grandson, whom she knew nothing about, and a secret she’s been hiding for years. The Bird Can’t Fly received the runner Special Jury Prize.
The festival’s Best Director Award went to another feature film debut: Stefan Arsenijevic’s Love And Other Crimes (Serbia/Germany/Austria/Slovenia). Set in Belgrade on a wintery day against a dreary backdrop of concrete housing blocks, Love and Other Crimes comes across as a moving human drama between a young man and a young woman, both subservient to the same crime boss. Their day-long quest to know each other better leads to a questioning search as to how best to start their lives anew. Stefan Arsenijevic is yet another Serbian directorial talent to keep an eye on.
Sofia Awards
International Competition
Grand Prix, Best Film
Rusalka (Mermaid) (Russia), dir Anna Melikyan
Special Jury Award
Vogel kan niet vliegen (The Bird Can’t Fly) (Netherlands/South Africa/UK), dir Threes Anna
Best Director, Cadillac Award
Stefan Arsenijevic, Ljubav i drugi zlo (Love And Other Crimes), (Serbia/Germany/Austria/Slovenia)
Best Bulgarian Short Film, Jameson Award
Semenia terapya (Family Therapy), dir Petar Vulchanov
Best Balkan Film, No Man’s Land Award
4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) (Romania), dir Cristian Mungiu
Best Bulgarian Feature Film, Kodak Award
Svetat e golyam i spasenie debne otvsyakad (The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner) (Bulgaria/Germany/Slovenia/Hungary), dir Stefan Komandarev
FIPRESCI (International Critics) Award
Shivachki (Seamstresses) (Bulgaria), dir Ludmil Todorov
Bitter Cup Award, Journalism and Mass Communication Faculty, St. Kliment Okhridsky Sofia University
P.V.C.-1 (Colombia/Greece/USA), dir Spiros Stathoulopoulus
Audience Award
Svetat e golyam i spasenie debne otvsyakad (The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner) (Bulgaria/Germany/Slovenia/Hungary), dir Stefan Komandarev
Sofia Municipality Award for Contribution to World Cinema
Jean–Claude Carrière (France), screenwriter/director
Nikita Mikhalkov (Russia), director/producer
Vladislav Ikonomov (Bulgaria), director
Milcho Leviev (Bulgaria), composer
Miki Manojlovic (Serbia), actor
– Ron Holloway
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