26-04-2010

Bulgaria’s Zincograph selected by Cannes L'Atelier

By Pavlina Jeleva

    Vladislav Todorov's and Yavor Gardev's political psycho-thriller Zincograph is the first Bulgarian feature project ever chosen by the Cannes Cinéfondation (www.festival-cannes.com/fr/cinefoundation) L'Atelier networking program.

    Together with the producer Bouriana Zakharieva from Bulgaria's Peripeteia Films (peripeteiafilm.com) the scriptwriter and the director will be present in Cannes from May 14-21, where they will also be promoting their successful black and white social satire Zift.

    Zincograph is Yavor Gardev‘s second feature project based on a script by USA-based Vladislav Todorov. Known as Bulgaria's most ambitious avant-garde theatre director, he recently staged Edward Albee's The Goat or Who is Sylvia, with the American playwright in attendance, followed with a hit production of another new play in Moscow. Practically without pause, Gardev, one of Bulgaria's most promising film directors as well, will now concentrate his attention on the futuristic world of his film Zincograph.

    Estimated at a €1.3 M budget, the project was successfully pitched at five international forums: Cottbus, Rome, Sarajevo, Thessaloniki and Sofia and won the Thessaloniki Balkan Fund Award and the Sarajevo Cinelink Restart award. It is also supported by the Bulgarian National Film Center (www.nfc.bg).

    Focused on the absurdist evolution of a fictional informant for the communist secret police, who after the fall of the totalitarian regime adapts himself to the new realities and makes dirty profits, the film will be "sharp and provocative." According to Gardev it will "painfully penetrate the social debate about the nature of post communist transition in South-Eastern Europe." He again has gathered his choice creative team: DoP Emil Christov, art directors Nikola Toromanov and Daniela Oleg Liahova, and composer Kalin Nikolov.