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CANARIES AND BIRDS OF PRAY: THE NEW SEASON OF BULGARIAN CINEMA

DINA IORDANOVA

THE INDUSTRY

The recent changes in the Bulgarian film industry are no exception to the
pattern established for all East European countries: ceased government
funding, empty studios looking for foreign film crews, the disappearance of
domestic films from the wide screen, armies of unemployed film
professionals. There was a significant drop in the number of movies produced
between 1991 and 1993. More recently, however, a greater number of features
have been released annually. During the years of communism (1944-1989) a
total of 594 feature films were produced. Production peaked at around 25
features yearly in the mid-eighties. In the nineties, with varying degrees
of success, the yearly number of films has been mostly in the teens.

Even if Sofia has not become as popular a shooting site as Prague, it
nonetheless has managed to attract a number of international co-productions.
The king of B-movies, Roger Corman, made Crisis in the Kremlin in 1992, and
is continues to use the Boyana Studios occasionally. More movies are either
in production or about to be shot on location in Bulgaria by foreign
directors such as Italian Francesco Rosi, British Tony Palmer, Serbian Goran
Markovic, French Alain Naum, and Russian Vasiliy Livanov. In a drive to
attract more foreign crews, the National Film Center published a Shooting
Guide that includes information on locations, facilities, costumes, services
and professionals for hire, legal, financial copyrights, customs, and
taxation. The latest project, rarely mentioned in the West, is the gigantic
set for this year's Cannes winner, Emir Kusturica's Underground, built in
Plovdiv by Chaplain Films: a production that created temporary jobs for many
unemployed workers at the city's bankrupt plant for metal constructions.

Everybody in the film industry seems to have been hit by financial
difficulties. Although secondary studios still exist, they do not manage to
keep their staff busy. The central film studio at Boyana has an extensive
stock of wardrobe and props, but the land of the studios has been reclaimed
by its former owners, and its future is problematic.1 The animated film
studio is still state property, but it functions as a combination of
state-run and private enterprise. Under its new director, Ivan Stoyanovich,
the studio has requested the protected status of a national institution.
Many well known animators work abroad (Zlatin Radev, Velislav Kazakov, Rumen
Petkov), while at home, animators Donio Donev, Anri Kulev, and Stoyan Dukov
compete for funding. Due to serious financial problems the Cinemateque has
no real chance to get a new building, and thousands of yards of archival
footage (121 702 tapes of which 6790 features and 748 unique Bulgarian
tapes) is kept in an inappropriate storage place. The cinemateque can barely
pay its FIAF membership, has ceased publishing activities, and has no new
acquisitions. Only two computers are available for electronic cataloguing.2
Many actors are unemployed. Some earn their livelihoods in other walks of
life: Velko Kunev, a well-known comedian opened a pizzeria, and Stoyko Peev,
the star of the 1980s historical super production Khan Asparukh, is now
running a seafood restaurant, while moonlighting at the Army Theater. Stefan
Danailov, who in the past played the leading communist character in the TV
sequel On Each Kilometer, recently appeared as a leader of an anti-communist
gang conspiring to kill Gorbachev in Roger Corman's movie. Formerly a member
of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Danailov has been now
invited to play a Mafia boss in the next round of the Italian TV miniseries,
Octopus .

The traditional link between production and distribution is no longer in
place. After the almost total destruction of the centralized exhibition
system, the market now is controlled by new private enterprises: Rainbow
Films, Sunny Films Entert., Bright Ideas, DP "RF", RadiVision. There are
only 319 cinema theaters, Sofia has 15. More than 90% of the films shown in
theaters are American imports. American films accounted for the ten top
grossing films in 1994. A surtax on ticket prices for American films, which
would go as subsidies for national filmmaking, is currently under
discussion. According to a recent poll, 88.7% of the all Bulgarians did not
see any Bulgarian feature in 1994, and only 4.7% saw even one.3 The most
watched Bulgarian film for the past few years - Bay Ganyo Goes to Europe
(dir. I. Nichev) - attracted only 810, 545 viewers.

Pirate imports dominate not only the video, but also the 35 mm prints
market. In July 1995 legislation was passed that criminalizes copyright
infringement and provides for prison terms and fines. According to Boriana
Neykova of the National Film Center, the Bulgarian video distribution
industry was valued at $ 40 million in 1994, but only a tiny part of this
operation is lawfully licensed.4

At the XXIInd film Festival in Varna (30 Sept.-7 Oct., 1994) the Golden Rose
was awarded to The Goat's Horn, directed by Nikolai Volev, the jury award
went to Mihail Pandurski for Golgotha, and the animation award -- to Anri
Kulev. In 1994 the Union of filmmakers launched their own "Oscars" in 14
categories. Awards were given to honor the achievements of the past several
years: best film to You, Who Are in Heaven by Docho Bodzhakov, best director
to veteran Rangel Vulchanov.

The copyrights issues seemed to have been resolved with the passing of the
copyrights bill in August 1993, but the law is still not effectively
enforced. As late as February 1995 the National TV was airing Bulgarian
movies without paying royalties to the filmmakers, claiming that copyright
protection does not apply retroactively. In the period 1990-1995 Bulgaria
Film Enterprise has sold movies abroad and has transferred the money to the
Ministry of culture instead of to the authors. Some filmmakers have declared
their intention to sue for royalties.

The reform of the industry and the production principles started with the
March 1991 closing of TSO Bulgarian Cinema which was directly funded from
the state budget. In June 1991 a National Film Center was created as an
alternative to centralized film production, although their funding still
came from the state budget. In October the NFC adopted bylaws and
regulations for producers, that were updated in 1994. For the period since
its creation the seven-member expert commission of the Center has voted
funding for more than 30 feature films, but only about half of these have
been completed. In 1994 the total allocated to film projects was 54 million
leva (less than a million $ U.S.). The 1995 budget for cinema is 80 million
leva, and the average subsidy for a movie is 10-15 million leva.5 Roughly
75% of the subsidies that NFC awards go to features, 13% to documentaries,
and 12 % to animated features. In animation the subsidy covers around 75% of
production costs, and in documentaries around 55%. In feature film, however,
the subsidy only provides for around 40% of the production needs.6 The
funding is supposed to cover 80 % of the costs, but while the subsidy is 6-8
million, the expenses run at 15-17. Furthermore, the subsidy comes in leva
that inflate constantly, but the cost is calculated in dollars, without
taking into account the rate of inflation. To the date the filming starts
the subsidy has often depreciated to 30%, and producers have to look
constantly for matching funds. 7

Bulgaria joined Eurimage in early 1993 and the essential dependency on this
pan-European subsidy body is gradually becoming apparent. Since 1995, for
projects assisted by Eurimage, NFC will be providing 40% in matching funds.
Thus almost no project can be filmed without first being granted support by
Eurimage.

The role of the producer is gaining a growing importance. Filmmakers realize
that they have to learn the basics of fundraising in their search for
monies, mostly from abroad. Director Ivan Nichev and his wife turned
producers for the Bulgarian-Italian co-production of Love Dreams, based on
Stefan Zweig. Director Petar Popzlatev claims that the East European cinemas
cannot attain the interest of Western viewers because they keep repeating
the topics of existential fear and uncertainty of the recent past and do not
come up with new subjects.8 Popzlatev chose to turn producer, and has worked
on several Bulgarian-French co-productions. According to Pavlina Zheleva of
NFC, it is too early to speak of really independent producers, since out of
130 registered producers only about 10 are really active.9

The shrinking funds for filmmaking have caused a generational conflict
between older filmmakers, who often prove unable to adapt to the new
workings of the system (in fundraising especially), and the younger pushier
filmmakers, who have to enter the scene in these difficult times. Often
directors are unhappy with the producers' principle in film production
because it abandons ideological considerations for the sake of the market.

Who receives funding is an important issue, and it cannot be denied that
there are instances of preferential treatment. The ones who are affected by
the restructuring, however, have not remain silent. In a series of four
large publications in the newspaper Bulgarski Pisatel, Lyubka Zakharieva
alleged that there was a plan for the deliberate destruction of the
Bulgarian cinema. She described the background of total devastation: a
drastic drop in the number of movies produced, in the number of cinema
theaters and spectators; a 230% increase in ticket prices; no sales of films
to foreign countries; and problems with copyrights, financial abuses, fishy
distribution deals. The opinion of the Union of Bulgarian filmmakers was
never taken in consideration, and some producers were given preference by
the NFC. Zakharieva questioned the methods and mechanisms of awarding
subsidies and the ways members of the commissions deciding on subsidies were
selected. According to her, the ones responsible for the crisis in cinema
industries were the new players close to the powers-that-be.10 Her
allegations were reprinted in abbreviated form by the popular weekly 168
Chasa, thus reaching wide audiences. The weekly Kultura got involved in the
conflict, opposing Zakharieva's allegations and indicating that her articles
were suggested by people affected by the restructuring.11 Independently of
this controversy, film critic Lyuba Kulezich scrutinized the die-hard habit
of secure government funding and criticized the poor results of movies that
were funded preferentially and were made with almost 100% state money.12

THE FILMS

In spite of all problems, movies do get released. The general picture of the
new Bulgarian cinema, however, lacks stylistic unity. What Ronald Holloway
described in his 1986 book on the matter as "poetic cinema" is no longer in
place.13 The variety of genres and styles is eclectic, starting with the
science-fiction film The Father of the Egg (Anri Kulev, 1991), the action
film A Bullet for Paradise (Sergei Komitski, 1992), and the satirical
Vampires, Spooks (Ivan Andonov, 1992), through the absurdist The Forbidden
Fruit (Krassimir Krumov, 1993), the melodramatic La Donna e Mobile (Nidal
Algafari, 1993), the period adaptation Love Dreams (Ivan Nichev, 1994), and
the nostalgic I Want America (Kiran Kolarov, 1991) and ending with the more
or less poetic Day of Forgiveness (Radoslav Spassov, 1993), Fatal Tenderness
(R. Vulchanov, 1993), and Something in the Air (Petar Popzlatev, 1993).

There have been a few trends in the topics that filmmakers have decided to
explore lately. Along with the intensification of the current Balkan
conflicts, Balkan filmmakers have started choosing "the Balkans" as a topic,
focusing on the stubbornness, the irrational hostility, the
narrow-mindedness, and the Byzantine Balkan mentality. Some recent films
indirectly explore the ethnic sores of the Balkans and try to explain how
present conflicts became so tense and unresolvable.

One of the examples is the 1994 remake of The Goat's Horn (Dir. Nikolai
Volev). The film captures the smooth landscape of the Rhodopi mountains, an
area populated with Bulgarians and Turks and simmering with centuries of
ethnic and religious tensions. It is set in the times of the Ottoman yoke
and tells the story of Maria, who is raised as a boy by her father in order
to avenge her mother's violent death. She achieves vengeance, killing, one
by one, the Turks who raped her mother, using a sharpened goat's horn as a
weapon. One day, however, Maria falls in love with a young Muslim shepherd
and discovers her feminine nature. The father finds out about the lover and
kills him. Desperate at the loss, Maria commits suicide, leaving her father
devastated and alone.

Considered a Bulgarian classic, the original film version of The Goat's Horn
was made in 1972 by the late Methody Andonov from a short story by Nikolai
Haitov, a writer who has the reputation of being an outspoken Bulgarian
nationalist. The first film adaptation contains almost no dialogue,
depicting tongue-tied people living in harmony with the sounds of the
wilderness. The remake, in contrast, stresses the unconsummated sexual
relationship of father and daughter. British-educated director Volev
consciously exploits the psychoanalytically charged plot to create a movie
falling within the contemporary discourse on sexual identities. The incest
theme plays off the misshapen sexual identity of Maria. The tragic
confrontation provoked by the murder of her lover is made even more intense,
since the dimension of ethnic differences is added to the original plot. In
the original story the beloved one is Bulgarian, but for the 1994 remake he
has been changed into a Muslim. Apparently Haitov himself agreed with (or
even suggested) the change, thus bringing the issues up-to-date politically.

Another film, however, attracted much more attention than the tale The
Goat's Horn. The TV mini-series Burn, Burn Little Flame (Dir. Rumyana
Petkova) also is set in the Rhodopi mountains, and spans over two decades,
from the 1970s and 1980s, thus touching on more recent problems of the
Muslim population of the region. The protagonist is a young Bulgarian girl
who volunteers to teach Russian in the fictional village of Mogla. There she
learns to value the archaic lifestyles of the isolated population. She also
becomes an accidental witness to a number of human rights abuses, starting
from little acts of coercion and culminating in a violent assimilation
campaign. Along with the local doctor, she ventures to reveal the truth
about the coercion and human rights abuses committed against the defenseless
villagers.

At the October 1994 festival of Bulgarian film the movie had received the
award of the critics. It was shown on TV only four months later -- over
several evenings in February 1995 -- and triggered a scandal in the mass
media. There were reports of unrest in Mugla, the shooting location, and in
the surrounding villages. Reportedly, the Pomaks (ethnic Bulgarian Muslims)
felt offended by the depiction of their lifestyles as archaic, which they
found so exaggerated that some of them spontaneously broke their TV sets.14
The most outspoken critic of the film was Boyan Sariev, a Christian priest
from the Rhodopi region, who is involved with converting Muslims to
Orthodoxy. According to him the movie incorrectly depicts the Rhodopi
population as a wild tribe, and thus creates ethnic tensions. In his
opinion, the film served foreign (allegedly Turkish) interests. 15

>From the provinces, the reactions against the film spread to the capital as
well. The chair of the Parliamentary security commission Nikolai Dobrev was
reported as saying that the movie poses a threat to national security.16
Klara Marinova, Chair of the Media commission of the Parliament took a
stance against the film as well.17 According to other critics, too many
movies focus on the problems of the minorities, but none on the problems of
the majority of ethnic Bulgarians.18

Allegations of a conspiracy followed. Funding for Burn, Burn, Little Flame
was provided by Bulgarian TV, NFC, Foundation 13 Centuries Bulgaria, and
Open Society - Sofia. The involvement of Open Society, however, became a
cause celebre for the nationalist critics who suggested that this
organization's goal is to promote hostile Islamic interests in the Orthodox
Balkans. They pointed out that in Macedonia it was Open Society again that
financed the creation of the controversial Albanian language University in
Tetovo, which was supposed to prove the conspiracy allegations. The
activities of the foundation were compared to growing cancer metastases. 19

The President Zhelyo Zhelev engaged in the debate about the film on the
opposite side.20 So did Evgenia Ivanova, an intellectual who is trying to
fight nationalism. According to her, the scandal around the film was
manipulated by nationalist-minded political circles21 The confrontation was
so serious that the TV had to cancel a scheduled documentary showing a
Thracian shrine where Christians and Muslims pray together, since it was
considered that it might deepen the conflict.

The fact that the movie was considered worthy of an award by the critics
widened the gap between intellectuals and mass audiences. Malina Tomova, the
writer, said in an interview that the film was a "metaphor of the
metaphysical guilt which the Bulgarian intellectuals have decided to take
responsibility for." Since at that time intellectuals could not interfere
with the brutality in their society, they suffered the humiliating fate of
staying silent about injustices that were committed. Thus it was Tomova's
intention to use the film to express a genuine remorse for the human rights
abuses that Bulgaria committed against its Muslim population in the
mid-eighties.22

The revival process was never openly and frankly discussed, and the authors
of Burn, Burn, Little Flame intended to challenge the Bulgarians and open a
discussion about the confrontations of the recent past. Their intention,
however, was not welcomed by the populist-minded press. Daily 24 Hours, for
example, wrote that while Bulgarians naively repent for imaginary human
rights abuses they have committed, members of minority groups allegedly
affected by the abuses actually write letters to protest the concept of the
film.23 Repenting was not the right thing to do according to M. Boycheva of
nationalist weekly Bulgarski Pisatel. If Bulgaria was to repent for alleged
sins against the Muslims, she claimed, Turkey ought to offer similar works
of art first, repenting for the 500 yera-long bloody Ottoman rule in
Bulgaria.24

Burn, Burn, Little Flame gradually turned into the most discussed film of
the past several years. Although some listed it among the 12 top films of
Bulgarian cinema,25 most critics had reservations with regard to its
artistry. Initially the project had been to film the memoirs of screenwriter
Mailna Tomova as a young teacher in the Rhodopi mountains from the early
1970s, who, among other things, also recorded the confessions of Bulgarian
Muslims. Tomova's stay in the Rhodopi and her oral history project had taken
place long before the "revival process" of the mid-1980s when the Bulgarian
government launched an assimilation campaign against the ethnic Turks of the
region. The focus of the film, however, was now placed precisely on the
clashes from 1980s. Thus the original ethnographic material was subjected to
the message insinuating the political guilt of Bulgarians, which was
classified by most critics as an unjustified change in the original
intention of the film.26

The strong reaction to the film occurred in the context of many film
projects that deal with the simmering ethnic tensions, but do not make it to
the widest TV audiences. A World In-Between which premiered in June 1995, is
a French-funded documentary by the filmmakers of Burn, Burn, Little Flame,
that uses ethnographic material shot during the filming of the series and is
intended to counter the reactions against the movie. Somewhere in Bulgaria
by Maria Trayanova documents the problems of an ethnically mixed village
through the eyes of the children. Another documentary, There, on the top...
, deals with the clash between two religious traditions in a hamlet in the
Rhodopi. The problems of Gypsies are the subject of documentaries such as
Gypsies of the world, unite! by Dimitar Petkov, and The Sparrows of the
Human Race by Boyan Papazov. Border (dir. Ilian Simeonov/Hristo Nochev)
featured a victimized Gypsy girl. Director Georgi Dyulgerov is about to
complete The Black Squirrel, in which the protagonist is a young Gypsy
woman. The film is expected to trigger new controversies.

Assen Balikci , a Canadian visual anthropologist of Bulgarian descent,
worked on a different type film project, again concerning the ethnic
tensions. He gathered representatives of three ethnic groups: Pomaks,
Christian Bulgarians, and Roma in the village of Breznitza in the region of
Pirin mountain, taught them ethnographic field methods and camcorder
techniques. Then he provided the pupils with video equipment and left them
to film whatever they consider of interest over a three-week period. The
films that they turned in, as reported by Balikci, revealed an intentional
avoidance of the topic of ethnic differences.27 His experiment indicated
that Bulgarians seemingly prefer to stay silent about their ethnic problems.

Not only the ethnicity is in the focus of filmmakers. Another tendency is to
make movies about the recent past, to show the atrocities of communism and
the traumas of the Stalinist years. It seems, however, that many of these
films end up serving only ad hoc political needs in the new political
environment of the country, without really providing deeper explorations of
historical topics.

In The Well (1990, Dir. D. Bodzhakov) and The Canary Season (1993, Dir. E.
Mikhailov) the clash between historical good and evil surfaces as a clash
between the sexes, with good women, who are passive and submissive, and evil
male who are excessively carnivorous perpetrators, members of the "new
class" of communist rulers. Innocent and helpless women are victimized by
brutal and amoral men, who are not only endowed with masculinity, but also
have political power and control all possible forms of redress.

Both films span the 1950s and 1960s, and both deal with family tragedies. In
The Well mother and daughter fall victim to the sexual appetites of the
protagonist, who is so totally corrupt and amoral that he ruthlessly
destroys everybody close to him (including his own brother and son). In The
Canary Season Lili, the film's protagonist, is a single mother whose 20
year-old son confronts her, requesting to know the identity of his father. A
battered mother, she accepts the challenge and gradually tells him the story
of her terrible ordeal, which the filmmakers narrate with flashbacks to
Lili's past. In the flashbacks, set in the 1950s, Lili becomes the rape
victim of a Comsomol activist, is forced to marry him, and is subsequently
exposed to all sorts of humiliations. She is sent to a concentration camp,
where she witnesses the myriad horrors of communist "correction" efforts.
Eventually she is locked up in a mental hospital, where the guards subject
her to sexual advances. Finally released, Lili comes to the conclusion that
most of her fellow citizens have become servants of the system that
destroyed her life.

In both The Well and The Canary Season, protagonists are silently and
gradually tormented, mostly through their sexuality. As a result, several
old cliches from the communist-era films persist, such as the cliche of
morally superior communist women falling victim to the perverted and
excessive sexual appetites of fascists. The only difference now is that the
sexual villains are communists, bestially promiscuous and lacking any moral
values. Nonetheless, filmmakers feel compelled to tell all these depressing
stories of people whose lives were destroyed by communist persecution, and
it is difficult to judge if they do this merely to be ideologically correct
or out of sincere conviction.

The Canary Season was made almost entirely with state funding, and was the
official Bulgarian entry to the Academy Awards in 1993. According to Lyuba
Kulezich, if the communist approaches to cultural persuasion were still in
place, all people would most likely be taken to see it. 28 The special
treatment this film project has received is due to the special reputation of
its director, Evgeny Mikhailov. Mikhailov was responsible for the famous
1990 recording that overthrew the last communist PM, Petar Mladenov, and
under the government of UDF enjoyed preferential treatment as an "active
fighter against communism." Thus not only are the moral cliches of communist
times reproduced in newer films, some filmmakers still enjoy the privileged
ways of the recent past.

On the other hand, there are some completely new features in the filmmakers'
community: for example, the recognition of the viewing interests of mass
audiences and the appearance of filmmakers who travel the skys overseas and
maintain offices on Sunset Boulevard. The Bulgarian -U.S. co-production Bird
of Pray is a case in point. It is a Hollywood-style erotic thriller that
received 980,000 leva in state subsidies, also received American money, and
was shot in Bulgaria. It is expected to gross at least among the top ten for
the year. The film, which was released in the U.S. in August, was scripted
by Bulgarian Boyan Milushev (who also stars in the film) and directed by
American Temistocles Lopez ("Chain of Desire"). Set in the bleak reality of
post-communism, it tells the story of a man bent on revenge who kidnaps the
daughter of his enemy only to fall in love with her.29

While productions like Bird of Pray may set the Bulgarian cinema on the new
track of Hollywood-bound cinematic ambition, it is still to be seen whether
or not the movie will make it at the box office. Still, there are
journalists who believe that the writer of the film will be the first
Bulgarian to get at least a nomination for an Oscar, if not the Oscar
itself.30

NOTES:

1. Duma, May 13, 1995.

2. Kultura, February 10, 1995.

3. Duma, 27 May, 1995.

4. Variety, July 17 - July 23, 1995.

5. Kultura, April 28, 1995

6. Bulgarian Cinema. Information Bulletin of the National Film Center.
December 1992.

7. Kino 1/1995.

8. Petar Popzlatev, Interview in Kino 1/ 1995.

9. Los Angeles Times. March 15, 1994.

10. Lyubka Zakharieva. Who Destroyed the Bulgarian Cinema. Bulgarski
Pisatel. April 10-17, April 18-25, April 25- May 2, and 2-8 May, 1995.

11. Kultura , April 28, 1995.

12. Trud, January 10, 1994.

13. Holloway, Ronald. The Bulgarian Cinema. Associated University Presses.
London and Toronto. 1986.

14. 24 Chasa, February 17, 1995.

15. Sariev, Boyan. Interview in 168 Chasa. March 27 - April 2, 1995. p. 17

16. 24 Chasa, February 17, 1995.

17. Standart, 27 February, 1995.

18. Zakharieva, Lyubka. In: Bulgarski Pisatel, April 10-17, 1995, p. 11.

19. Boycheva, Milena. Oganche, podhvarleno v senoto. Bulgarski Pisatel.
March 6-13, 1995. p. 1 - 4.

20. Aleksandrova, Petya. Dr Zhelev obvini BNT v gruba cenzura. Standart,
February 25, 1995.

21. Ivanova, Evgenia. Interview for Standart. February 25, 1995. p. 18

22. Tomova, Malina. Interview for Radio Darik. Quoted in Boycheva. March,
1995.

23. Hadjiev, Valentin. S Mugla politicite ni pak se pravyat na delikatni. 24
Chasa. February 17, 1995.

24. Boycheva, Milena. Oganche, ... Bulgarski Pisatel. March 6-13, 1995. p.
4.

25. Mateeva, Boriana. Kino 2/1995.

26. Kino, 2/1995. pp. 25-31. Nezavarshvasht razgovor . A discussion of Burn,
Burn, Little Flame with Aleksandar Kertin, Yuliana Metodieva, Hristo Kirkov,
and Margit Saraivanova.

27. Balikci, Assen. A Visual Anthropology Project in a Multicultural
Setting. Balkan Media. 4/1995. p. 37-40.

28. Kulezich, Lyuba. Trud, January 10, 1994.

29. The Hollywood Reporter, March 15, 1994.

30. Vulkanova, Eleonora. Democratsia, June 2, 1993 .

(c) Kostadina Iordanova