This year I set myself a goal – to watch as many films as possible from the competition program of the Sofia Film Fest. Out of the selected 12, I fought with 9. In the previous six editions of the competition, I admit that if I watched something, it was rather by chance.
I started with the idea that experiencing a director’s first or second film requires a more special attitude when watching them. And since I’m also a newbie to the deeper reach of other film debutantes, I figured I could count on someone more knowledgeable than me to help and “check the clock.” I chose one of the members of the international jury, the Serbian director Stefan Arsenijevic, because he is the only one I know from his films “Love and Other Crimes” and his omnibus novella “Generation: Lost and Found”. And we are also peers. So, I braced myself for self-doubting cinematic narratives peppered with both hits and misses. And indeed, while watching the films, I had the feeling that they followed the logic of the ocean – they had their ebb and flow, but quite frequent and intense. I constantly asked myself in which of them, in the tides or the ebbs and flows, the true director is visible. “Yes, that’s right – agrees Stefan Arsenievich, while we talk an hour before the jury hands out its awards on the stage of Hall 1 of the National Palace of Culture on March 14. – The film is a rather treacherous thing, because even the best directors make bad films sometimes. And it’s because you’re working with people. Take the weather, for example. If it’s sunny, it affects your mood. If you’re an actor and you haven’t slept before in the evening, if you had a fight with your wife – it also affects the film. Sometimes you can’t even blame the director for them. However, bad films are also part of our work and so we should really appreciate when something good comes along.” The selection of films in the competition offered a varied tour through many different corners of the world – it started from the Balkans (with “Dzift” / Bulgaria, “Autumn” / Turkey and “The Happiest Girl in the World” / Romania), moved to Western Europe ( “Bachtalo (Luck!) / Hungary, “Daybreak Dreams” / Spain, “Franklin” / Great Britain and “Chico” / Germany), stopped in the Middle East (with “To my father” / Israel, but also Germany), reached The Far East (with “The Healer” / Kazakhstan, but also France / Germany), from there it moved to Asia (“On land” / India / Iran, but also France) and ended its journey in America (North – “Kumbia Kayera” / Mexico and the South – “Possible Life” / Argentina, but also Germany). – Most of the titles were good and some were remarkable. The selection gives a clear idea of what is happening with new directors at the moment. I liked that the films were completely different from each other – from completely classic to experiments between documentary and feature cinema, for example. In every film, I looked for a unique voice.” I looked for unique voices, too, but even more so I looked for ones that I could accept in harmony with my own. And I found those. As well as others that I would have easily missed, or at least hardly interested in the films of their directors from here on. Besides the fact that “Dzift” won the Kodak award, it was honored by the jury as the first film noir in Bulgarian cinema. A very good experience for a debutant director. I liked the visual style, the cinematographer did a great job. I had trouble using the stereotypes of film noir as a genre, as I’m generally not a fan of it. I would prefer not to have so many references to other movies. Overall, “Dzift” is very modern, new, different and fresh. I have the feeling that Bulgarian cinema is slowly moving up and developing different themes, which is very important. There are several good films every year, and that’s good for a small cinematography like yours,” believes Stefan Arsenievich. Yavor Gurdev’s directorial debut in the cinema undoubtedly has more than first-class cinematography plus the right editing, and audience potential that already realized in our country. At the moment, the film is making the impression of a modern title. However, this noir story does not manage to hold my attention for an entire film, it caused Yavor Gurdev to take with her as it relates to the chamber plays he puts on in the theater. They usually show the director’s intelligence, his rich general culture, but with the exception of “The Old Woman from Calcutta”, the others (such as “The Baby Play”, “Life by 3”, for example) radiate pretentiousness precisely because of the desire to be very original. Look, as for his large-scale performances like “King Lear” and “Marat/Sad”, I can only clap my hands – Gardev masters the epic and the grandiose. Maybe if his next film goes in this direction, he will have more success. In my eyes. While I wondered if a director’s first and second films should be judged differently than those of their more experienced colleagues, not more leniently, but with a greater understanding of their unevenness, Arsenievich, himself having directed as yet only 1 feature film, gave me his point of view: “Yes, it should, judging by my own experience. Before I made my feature film, I was making short films and I thought, well, what difference can it make? But then I realized, that it’s a completely different world. With short films you can practice, but in feature films you need time to master the form. So it’s good to encourage young directors, because they can’t be perfect. ” But they can show their potential in the ebbs and flows of their films, and so eloquently that you can forgive their dips. Take Jury Prize winner for directing, Jozkan Alper and his debut, Autumn. Some accuse the film of trying to imitate Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Leaving that aside and making the inevitable remark about some clichés in the plot (the love that the two main characters strive for, but it is unclear why nothing ever works out, one particularly jarring shot – the main character on the breakwater and against the background of the most tragic music of the world waves pour almost entirely on him, as well as the somewhat vague definition of “political prisoner” – are all socialists imprisoned in Turkey and what exactly are they fighting for?), the director deserves congratulations. First, he chose the most suitable actor for the main role – Onur Sailak wins with his soft presence without hinting at melodrama. Second, beautiful, though not surprising, is the metaphor of autumn coming prematurely upon a man when he should be in the summer of his life. And last but not least, finding an extremely good cameraman who manages to escape bed painting even on sunset walks on the beach. “In my opinion, the winner for directing is very interesting and promising – says Stefan Arsenievich. – Maybe because I am a director, that was my criterion – I was looking for directors who are brave enough to discover their own world in the cinema, to involve me in it, to show me their point of view. The moment I feel like I’m watching something I’ve already seen, even if it’s done well, I’m looking for directors who do something fresh.” But a “fresh” or original idea is not always enough to make it a successful experience. “Cumbia Cayera” is a completely different Mexican film if you know Mexican cinema from Cuarón and Iñárritu. An unpretentious musical, which, however, falters in places due to the lack of sufficient filling for the plot. However, I liked the idea of one woman successfully spinning two men without it turning into a tragedy. On Land is another beautifully and skilfully shot film. It is the second directorial effort of the 1947-born writer Chapur Hagigat, who has chosen actors for the roles of his villagers. His take on India’s all-powerful bureaucracy is nothing new, but more importantly, it doesn’t evoke much sympathy for the characters. And it should, because that is its main purpose. “Dawn Dreams” offers us a familiar story in which a little boy receives love and support from an adult instead of his parents. “Kolya” and “Secondhand Lions” are a high bar to jump over, however. The film is partly an autobiographical story, says its director Freddy Mas Franchezza, but its touching moments alternate with overly literal ones (especially at the end, when the grandfather gets Alzheimer’s), and it reminded me of Iris. For me, getting into the soul of a person is much stronger than delving into the physiological features. They don’t make us unique, though. Visually, “Franklin” was one of the most polished films, although in general I was strongly impressed by the cinematography in most of the selected titles. Debutant Gerald McMorrow has assembled a wonderful cast, and the finale arranges the plot before your eyes in a surprising way, as did The Sixth Sense, for example. Before the final, however, I would also like the intrigue to hold me by the throat so much that I want to get to it faster, not with a slight annoyance, but with impatience. “The Happiest Girl in the World” – an overly long short film that loses its absurdity of situations and humor precisely because of this fact. I really liked the idea of the long takes where nothing happens and the constant takes for the commercial they shoot in the movie. They very well convey the atmosphere of an average film set. But I got tired of them because, despite the small plot, they were repeated ad infinitum. Filmmaker Radu Jude, who received the FIPPRESSI award, showed more humor at the press conference when he shared that he wanted to make the first Romanian blockbuster, but because he couldn’t, he decided to market it as an art film. I hope next time he will orient himself more correctly what exactly he wants to do. “Bakhtalo (Luck)” was, for me, the film that made it into the selection, simply because there was room for one more. An attempt at a feature film that uses a documentary approach. Actually a documentary that turns into a feature. A little messy, but nothing remarkable. It wasn’t hard for me to decide which films I liked about what and which one I would honor first, but I thought about how to match the tastes and pursuits of five people, as many as were on the jury, so as to reach an agreement on the distribution of the awards, more more that art appreciation is always so subjective. “We talked for a long time, the members of the jury are very nice people, and I think that if someone had recorded our conversation, it would have been a very interesting film, because it was very funny – lifts the curtain Stefan Arsenievich. – From time to time we argued fiercely, but with humor and good feeling towards each other. Even today, we still share jokes from last night. It was a privilege to be among such special interesting people, some of whom have different views about cinema than me.” So, the big winner according to the jury, and according to me, was the Israeli-German co-production “On my father”. The son of a Bulgarian Jew, Dror Zahavi, offers another look at the ongoing conflict between Palestinians and Jews. I was ready to dismiss the film at the slightest flaw after reading the synopsis for it and reluctantly prepared for another story on this topic. However, the film is both touching and funny and tragic. But the light in the tunnel that he discovers is important – problems and conflicts can be overcome by ordinary people, in everyday life, when they sit at the same table and look at life through each other’s eyes, not with summit meetings or armed attacks.
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