17-03-2010

Bulgarian daily sells national features on DVD

By Pavlina Jeleva
    Bulgaria's National Film Center this month is funding production of 100,000 DVD's of 12 Bulgarian features for sale with a daily national newspaper.

    Following a weekly schedule the titles will be sold by the "Trud" daily (http://www.trud.bg/) at the price of 2 Euro each and will be accompanied by a strong media campaign. "The aim is to help the promotion of the best Bulgarian films of the previous decade." said NFC director Alexander Donev.

    The DVD distribution scheme started with Stephan Komandarev‘s The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner (http://www.theworldisbig.com/en/), followed by Kamen Kalev's Eastern Plays (http://www.easternplays.com/ ) shortly before premiered in Paris on March 9. The third will be Zornitsa Sophia's 2008 Forecast (http://forecastthemovie.com/ ). They will be followed by Georgi Stoev-Jacky ‘s Fly by Rossinant (2007); Andrei Slabakov's Hindemith (2008); Ivailo Hristov's and Ludmil Todorov's Emigrants (2002); Iglika Trifonova's Letter to Amerika (2002); Ludmil Todorov's Seamstresses (2008); Ilia Kostov ‘s Time for Women (2007); Ilyan Simeonov ‘s Warden of the Dead (2007); Milena Andonova's Monkeys in Winter (2006); and Georgi Djulgerov's Lady Z (2007).

    It is not the first time feature films have been distributed by newspapers in Bulgaria. In 2005 the daily "24 Hours" (http://www.24chasa.bg/) presented its collection of 30 Bulgarian classical films on DVD, mainly produced before 1989.

    "22 places in 2 days" was the motto of the distribution action supported by the NFC. An extraordinary simultaneous DVD "premiere" of Ivan Cherkelov's Crayfish (http://www.raci.klasfilm.com/) took place in February. Producer Rossitza Valkanova said, "We were together those two nights, people across the country who wanted to see a film which is not a comedy, not a pop-corn film that you'd forget next morning. We were a bit more than 2000 people - and it's not the same as to have sold 2000 DVD's!"