Held for three consecutive weekends through April 19th at the centrally located Scandinavia House on New York’s Park Avenue, the festival will be known henceforth as the Tishman International New York Bulgarian Film Festival. Tishman International Companies is a multi-billion real estate company that is building the Sofia Airport Center, a $350 million business complex.

Tishman serving as the principal sponsor of the fest confirms the larger role transnational corporations play now in the international film festival business. Last year another New York based festival changed its name to the Mahindra Indo American Arts Council film fest since that large conglomerate embraced it. Another fact impacting the Bulgarian fest is the larger financial support Bulgarian film makers enjoy now. For once, the Bulgarian government has increased public support, but more importantly Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union opened funding sources such as arte, zdf, canal plus, euro media, to name but a few. As in many other fests, co-production funding by these external agencies become indicators of the likely quality of the films.

The Bulgarian fest included nine feature films, and numerous documentaries, animations and shorts, including several from other Balkan countries. All had their New York premiere playing for a small but enthusiastic audience with a strong ethnic Bulgarian component. Established in 1999 to give to the then obscure Bulgarian cinema a presence in New York the festival’s program certainly shows the progress of films from that country. Several screened this year under the Tishman sponsorship were outstanding and demonstrated original mastery of the medium and genres, as evidenced by international awards garnered. Thus Bulgaria may very well follow the path to international recognition set by Romania.

My favorite films include the Bulgarian/Dutch co-production INVESTIGATION (Iglika Trifinova), a well-paced beautifully enacted fact-based thriller in which a female investigator unravels the mystery surrounding the murder of a man by his own brother. The interrogations help the investigator come to terms with her own problems. THE MOSQUITO PROBLEM AND OTHER STORIES (Andrey Pacunov), subversive and playful documentary portraits the demise and stagnation of a small Bulgarian town immersed in a constant mosquito problem which like traces of the communist past and the unfinished nuclear power plant refuses to fade away. The paradoxes and absurdities of every day life in this town and the enigmatic characters inhabiting it make The Mosquito Problem one of the most appealing films I have seen lately. Equally attractive proved the documentary THE TRANSLATOR OF BLACK AND WHITE MOVIES by Teddy Moskov. This film provides a succinct depiction of Nelly Chervenusheva, the woman who introduced through instant translations from the back of Sofia’s Odeon Theatre the Italian cinema to the Bulgarian audience, starting with the communist party elite fifty years ago. Given its guiding concept The Translator presents well chosen excerpts from numerous Italian films as well as image of the places where he films were made as well as insights from her favorite directors she meets on her touching visit to Italy. Apart from the superfluous first scenes, this film is a handsome and well edited introduction to Italian cinema.

Another surprising revelation was the feature NIGHT AND DAY by Krasimir Krumov, the story of a 12 year old boy Marko who lives in a remote rural area with his farming mother while the father works in the mines. He takes care of her after she is raped and traumatized falling into a catatonic state. Night and Day has is a carefully crafted script slowly leading up to the rape and its aftermath. The film presents the background ethnic and religious conflicts besetting Bulgarian village life and how they impact personal relations and forced choices. Outstanding photography of the poverty and destitution of the rural and mining settings is matched by the bravado performance of Kristian Simeonov in the role of Marko. However, an exaggerated subplot (including prostitution and crime) and an ending with a dream sequence distract from this otherwise most noteworthy and subtle production. A script doctor could have helped
transforming this film into a minor classic.


Claus Mueller, New York Correspondent
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