17-01-2010

Strong year ahead for new Bulgarian films

By Pavlina Jeleva

    Bulgaria's National Film Center (www.nfc.bg) announced that 14 new titles are expected to be produced in 2010.

    Three are scheduled for release in the first half of 2010. Plamen Masslarov's The Ravishment, a present-day continuation of Nikola Rudarov's 1986 film Cry for Help (both written by Boyan Biolchev), is the story of a man who falls in love with the woman he is ordered to ravish. In Stanimir Trifonov's The Glass River, an adaptation of Emil Andreev's 2006 "best novel of the year" winner, a young French student arrives in Bulgaria in search of ancient Orthodox signs. Based on Alek Popov's novel Mission London Dimitar Mitovski's film under the same name is scheduled in early spring.

    Scheduled for distribution later in 2010 are five feature films: Svetoslav Ovcharov's Voice over (based on a real Communist secret police file); Keran Kolarov's If Someone Loves You (ex Innocently Yours); Ivailo Hristov's Steps in the Sand (ex A Place With No Windows); Viktor Chouchkov Jr.'s Tilt and Ivan Vladimirov & Valery Yordanov's Sneakers.

    2010 is also expected to see the completion of a multi-year effort from Bulgaria's leading animator Anri Koulev with Innocent Devilries. The film mixes live action with numerous special effects, and ironically interprets famous works by German writer and composer E. T. A. Hoffmann.

    Four additional debuts, two of which dealing with problems of present-day teenagers, are still in postproduction: Dragomir Sholev's Shelter, written by the Romanian-Dutch writing couple Razvan Radulescu and Melissa de Raaf and Zvetodar's Markov HD Hunt for Small Predators. Madgalena Ralcheva's Something Else About Love by Georgy Danailov is the only film based on real people and historical events from the recent past.

    Eagerly awaited, Ilian Djevelekov's Love.net which looks at curious IT stories, still needs ten additional shooting days in March.