06-05-2009

Eastern Plays bows in Cannes

By Pavlina Jeleva

    Shot in five weeks in Sofia and Istanbul, Kamen Kalev's debut Eastern Plays, a look at Sofia's underground youth life, screens at Director's Fortnight before its fall release in Bulgaria.

    "The entire crew felt a special energy that seemed to appear from nowhere," Kalev said of the shoot.

    Kalev previously directed commercials and (with Dimitar Mitovski) two shorts: Get the Rabbit Back in 2005 and Rabbit Troubles in 2007, both selected by the Critics Week in Cannes.

    Kalev said that, "Just waiting for national subsidies did not produce anything serious," so he started to promote Eastern Plays on his own,first at the Sofia Meetings (www.cinema.bg/sff/sofiameetings), then at the Sarajevo CineLink (www.sff.ba) co-production market. Two happy encounters - one with the Turkish actress Saadet Işıl Aksoy ("Egg", Semih Kaplanoğlu) that "clarified the story" and an other with the private investor Anguel Christanov, "who practically financed most of the shooting," made the film possible without the help of the state. Subsequently Eastern Plays turned into a Bulgarian-Swedish co-production with national co-producers WaterFront Film (www.waterfrontfilm.net) (owned by Stefan Piryov & Kamen Kalev) and Anguel Christanov for Bulgaria and the Stockholm based post facilities company Chimney Pot (www.thechimneypot.com) financed by the Film i Väst (www.filmivast.se) regional fund for Sweden. The 80/20% co-production, coming in at under €700,000, was picked up by Memento Films (www.memento-films.com) as sales agent.

    Production credits

    Scriptwriter and director - Kamen Kalev

    Director of Photography - Julian Atanasov

    Set decorator - Martin Slavov

    Score music - Jean-Paul Wall

    Sound - Momchil Bozhkov,Boris Trayanov

    Editing - Kamen Kalev, Stefan Piryov, Johannes Pin

    Producers - Stefan Piryov, Kamen Kalev, Fredrik Zander

    Co-Producers - Anguel Christanov, Thomas Eskilkson

    Executive Producer - Maya Vitkova

    Cast

    Itso - Christo Christov

    Georgi - Ovanes Torosian

    Isil - Saadet Işıl Aksoy

    Niki - Nikolina Yancheva

    Georgi and Itso's father - Ivan Nalbantov

    Georgi and Itso's stepmother - Krasimira Demireva

    Isil's mother - Hatice Aslan

    Isil's father - Kerem Atabeyoglu

     

    WaterFront Film

    Stefan Piryiov

    Bacho Kiro 39

    1202 Sofia

    Bulgaria

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    www.waterfrontfilm.net

     

    Chimney Pot

    Fredrik Zander

    Sturegatan 58

    114 36 Stockholm

    Sweden

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    www.thechimneypot.com

     

    Film i Väst AB

    Akerssjöv. 4

    461 23 Trollhättan

    Sweden

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    www.filmivast.se

     

    Memento Films International

    In Cannes

    Riviera Booth n° E.8

    +33 4 92 99 33 07

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    In Paris

    9, cité Paradis

    75010 Paris - France

    Tel: + 33 1 53 34 90 20

    Fax: + 33 1 42 47 11 24

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    International Press

    In Cannes

    Mob: + 33 6 46 84 48 81

    www.memento-films.com