“My characters are mostly members of my family, friends, relatives and myself. My approach to the filmmaking process is thus delicate, and it requires a longer period of observation. The visual style of the film is multilayered, as the story requires it. It employs first-person shooting, historical archive and animation crafted by the Bulgarian animation artist Asparuh Petrov to juxtapose personal and historical, past, and present. With this film I take a close look at how family traumas keep us tied to the past, and I search for a way to let them go and to free my children from them. I want to understand my father, but also us men today, in the context of our times. The traditional façade of the tough, non-emotional man is failing. So, I think we, men, have to look deeper inside ourselves to solve emotional traumas so that we can be better fathers, sons and partners,” Nikolay Stefanov told FNE.
Ralitsa Golemanova, who penned the script together with Nikolay Stefanov, is producing through Bulgaria’s Smarty Pants Shooter Ltd., with support from the Bulgarian National Film Center and the Bulgarian National Culture Fund. The total budget is 240,000 EUR.
“The film starts out as a true crime and adds layer after layer: the story reveals the emotional and psychological effects of family trauma and the changing perceptions of masculinity and fatherhood in our times. In the background of the personal story, the unresolved collective trauma from the totalitarian regimes, whose effect is painfully visible in Europe today, keeps lurking. Its presence also shapes the real-time investigation of the cold case, with director Nikolay Stefanov clashing with the reality of state institutions in Bulgaria today,” Ralitsa Golemanova told FNE.
The project was developed in the EURODOC programme in 2022, was one of the three documentary finalists at NEM Market 2023, and it was also presented at Heart of Europe Forum 2024 in Warsaw.
The 50 shooting days are set between March 2023 – August 2025, and the postproduction is planned for the end of 2025.
The producer is actively seeking additional international financing and international coproducers.
Stefanov’s previous film, No Place for You in Our Town, produced by Smarty Pants Shooter Ltd. in coproduction with HBO MAX, premiered at CPH:DOX in 2022, and it was selected for almost 30 festivals, including Visions du Réel, Sheffield DocFest and Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. It has received six awards, including Best Long Documentary Award at the National Film Festival “Vasil Gendov” – Union of Bulgarian Filmmakers Awards Awards in 2023.
Production Information:
Producer:
Smarty Pants Shooter Ltd. (Bulgaria)
Ralitsa Golemanova: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Credits:
Director: Nikolay Stefanov
Scriptwriters: Nikolay Stefanov, Ralitsa Golemanova
Script consultant: Simeon Ventsislavov
DoP: Nikolay Stefanov
Editor: Stoyan Velinov
Animation: Asparuh Petrov
Sound Design and Postproduction: Ivan Andreev
