It’s the perfect period of the year – the spring is coming, the days are longer, the upcoming Sofia Meetings projects selection is almost done.
And may all of the selected succeed in becoming features full of festivals and awards histories.
We are pleased to announce the Sofia Meetings 2020 selection for Second Film Projects, Plus Minus One Projects, Projects in Bank and the selection of First Films First:
Second Film Projects
ICE, UK
Stéphanie Joalland (director)
Sean McConville (producer)
FRENZY FILMS
Logline: When a one-million-year-old parasitic bacterium is unearthed during a fracking accident, a bereaved microbiologist travels to a research facility in the Arctic to investigate its disturbing impact on the human brain.
NENE, Georgia
Mariam Khatchvani (director)
Vladimer Katcharava (producer)
20 Steps Productions
Logline: A young woman tries to release her unfairly accused and sentenced family members from Jail.
PARTY FOR SHY PEOPLE, Switzerland
Francesco Rizzi (director)
Olga Lamontanara, Michela Pini (producers)
CinEdokkE, 8horses
Logline: In a surreal near-future society in which shyness is considered as an illness to eradicate, an introverted idealist is forced to attend a violent and bizarre re-education training, in order to return to the community as an efficient, strong-willed citizen. Will he fight to change himself or will he dare to try to change the system?
SEX CUT, Albania / Italy
Eno Milkani (director)
Eno Milkani, Vincenzo Filippo (producers)
BUNKER FILM, Lupin Film
Logline: Vera, a young woman embarks on a personal fight, to discover and raising questions about her freedom of mind, in a society packet with male and ideological rules, in confront towards sex appeal and individualism. In this fight, she’s the winner, but a designated victim of her thoughts and passions.
TO CARNATIONS A SONG, Turkey
Bekir Bülbül (director)
Halil Kardaş (producer)
Filmcode Production
Logline: The struggle of an elderly refugee who had to walk for miles by carrying his wife's corpse to reach the border under harsh climatic conditions.
VAMPIRISM, Spain
Antonio Morales (director)
Jon Arrospide, Antonio Morales (producers)
Antonio Morales PC
Logline: The piercing outcry of flamenco singing is shattered by the bite of a vampire. Terror and music, Spain in the pre-war years, a scenery deviously mesmerized by odd mishaps, which slowly turns into an eerie rite.
Plus Minus One Projects
1970, Serbia / Hungary / Germany / Croatia
Darko Lungulov (director)
Jelena Radenkovic (producer)
Papa Films
Logline: Fourteen-year-old Drasko, accidentally learns that his parents are planning to leave him in the countryside, with his grandparents, until they figure out what they’ll do with their problematic
marriage.
BACKWOODS, Czech Republic
Evzenie Brabcova (director)
Peter Badac (producer)
BFILM
Logline: The film Backwoods tells the phantasmagorical story of family ghosts, wild boars, and the end of the world, which we each imagine differently. An existential, surreal drama with documentary elements offers a glimpse into a dystopian land while also dealing with transience, memory and love.
BAUK, Bulgaria / Serbia
Goran Radovanovic (director)
Nikolay Mutafchiev (producer)
PREMIER studio
Logline: The story follows 78 days in the life of Sava (8) living under the bombs in Belgrade 1999. Under mysterious circumstances, caused by shell-shock or stress, Sava loses his hearing and the ability to speak. The war is finally over. Will his life return to normal?
BLAZING, Hungary
Balazs Dudas (director)
Gabor Kovacs (producer)
Filmpartners Production Group
Logline: Blazing is a twisted bildungsroman, with dramatic and comic elements: the young protagonist is unwilling to accept what the rural industrial town’s society can offer or its expectations, therefore he isolates himself and revolts by taking his own path, leading to risky and illegal situations.
CLASS 90, Bulgaria
Boiko Boyanov (director)
Mila Voinikova (producer)
MIRAMAR FILM
Logline: Schoolmates who graduated in 1990 in Bulgaria gather at a small hotel in the Rhodope mountain to celebrate their 30th high school anniversary. What is supposed to be a festive event turns into painful experience as old secrets and trauma still haunt them. The sum of their life experiences, their unfulfilled dreams and current goals reflect the upheavals of the post-communist society during the 30 years after the fall of the Berlin wall.
STAND BY ME (Ex Lovehack), Russia
Tamara Dondurey (director)
Katia Filippova (producer)
PAN - ATLANTIC STUDIO
Logline: Kira is a young architect. A tragedy makes her to learn to live from scratch, to find the way to accept the past of her family in order to become a mother herself. Kira is changing in the same way as her Moscow is renewing. Kira’s pain is in her inability to love, in her fear of the future.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO KIMON, Greece
Neritan Zinxhiria (director)
Vasilis Chrysanthopoulos (producer)
Plays2place
Logline: Hurting her new lover and winning her back; When Kimon’s erotic fantasy about his ex-girlfriend results to her and her lover’s death, remorse and guilt will bring him close to the family of the deceased man.
In partnership with Crossroads
THE HERD, Bulgaria
Milko Lazarov (director)
Vesselka Kiryakova (producer)
Red Carpet
Logline: When a border village in the mountain, which is being traversed by refuges during the night and renovated with EU funds during the day, is left with the news that gold has been found, whilst the animals start dying from a mysterious sickness, villagers point their fingers at and destroy the live of the only one among them who is different, the tomboy weightlifter TARIQA (18).
THE FORTUNE TELLER, Bulgaria
Svetla Tsotsorkova (director)
Svetoslav Ovcharov, Svetla Tsotsorkova (producer)
FRONT FILM, OMEGA FILMS
Logline: As a result of a misunderstanding, a lonely gypsy woman with three children is declared a fortuneteller and begins to profit from it. Will she find the inner strength to overcome greed and remain human?
THE WORKER, Bulgaria / Germany
Eliza Petkova (director)
Karsten Stöter (producer)
ROHFILM FACTORY
Logline: A Bulgarian man comes to Germany searching for happiness and loses himself.
THE YEAR OF THE DIRTY MEMORY, Spain / Italy / Czech Republic
Matias Boero Lutz (director)
Sylvie Leray (producer)
REVERSO FILMS
Logline: The Year of the Dirty Memory is a story focus on the relationship between a theatre teacher from Chile living in Madrid who was tortured in the past during the dictatorship and his encounter with his new student, who is the daughter of his torturer.
First Films First
LITTLE TROUBLE GIRL, Slovenia
Urska Djukic (director)
Marina Gumzi (producer)
NOSOROGI
SHIPBUILDING, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Zulfikar Filandra (director)
Armin Hadzic (producer)
Marletti
LEAVE THE DOOR OPEN, Croatia
Judita Gamulin (director)
Rea Rajcic (producer)
Eclectica
PULA, Croatia
Andrej Korovljev (director)
Dijana Mladenovic (producer)
Kinematograf
WINDY DAYS ARE GOOD FOR FLYING, Bulgaria
Petar Krumov (director)
Rossitsa Valkanova (producer)
KLAS FILM
BABY, Greece
Kyritsis Nikolas (director)
Maria Drandaki (producer)
Homemade Films
LACUNA, Turkey
Selman Nacar (director)
Burak Cevik (producer)
Kuyu Film
SILVANA, Serbia
Nikola Zdravkovic (director)
PROJECTS IN BANK
3 KILOGRAMS OF HAPPINESS, Bulgaria
Zornitsa Sophia (director/producer)
MQ PICTURES
Logline: A 52-year-old woman decides to help her daughter and her son-in-law, and gets pregnant with their baby against the will of her husband, thus swirling the lives of all four of them. A true story from Sofia, Bulgaria, 2017.
DUE, Italy
Giuseppe Battiston (director)
Giuseppe Battiston, Marco Pettenello (producer)
RAI CINEMA
Logline: Trapped in lonely city lives, two middle-aged men crave happiness and purpose. Following a chance encounter, they cultivate a shared dream: to escape to the countryside and start afresh. Though their best efforts end in repeated failures, they make a comic duo that’s hard to beat!
GROWING UP, Bulgaria
Alexander Lebedevsky (director)
Luchezar Velinov (producer)
ZOGRAPHIC FILMS
Logline: Investigator Nikolov, is a recently widowed man, in his late 50s. When his daughter entrusts him to raising her 13-year-old son, he is completely unprepared to communicate with him. Investigating a teenager girl's death will help him find his way to the boy, but will also put him at a moral dilemma.
HELLO, Bulgaria
Stephan Komandarev (director)
Katya Trichkova (producer)
ARGO FILM
Logline: Blaga (70) – a retired teacher, falls victim to a phone scam and loses the money saved for hers and her late husband’s dream grave. In order to collect the sum again, Blaga contacts the phone scammers and starts working for them as a “mule”. The once resilient and honest woman slowly starts sacrificing all of her principles.
KIRIL'S LUCK, Bulgaria
Milena Andonova (director)
Rali Raltchev, Katya Trichkova (producers)
KERN FILM
Logline: Refusing to live according to other people’s ideas of happiness, the winner of a record-breaking jackpot, Kiril (56) searches for love and an escape from loneliness but finds himself trapped by the doubt that his winnings are all everybody sees in him.
LOVE LAND, Bulgaria / Poland
Viktoria Marinov (director)
Malgorzata Wabińska (producer)
ENTERTAIN PICTURES
Logline: According to the Balkan legends, there is a treasure hidden in the territory of Bulgaria. Viktoria, a polish girl with Bulgarian roots, sets out on a journey to find out if the hidden treasure has its own magnetism that attracts people to the province of Bulgaria, and which affects her too.
NOIR, Bulgaria
Ilya Velchev (director)
Dimitur Gotchev (producer)
INFLUX MEDIA GROUP
Logline: NOIR is a story with a fantasy finale, a criminal drama in noir style. The good guy - a young Investigator, desperately struggles to love and to be loved, to preserve the dignity, morality and meaning of his life subjected to the erosion of temptation. His nobleness is punished, happiness is not fair. The black story of the traffic of antiques is colored in blood, love and gold.
SABATTIER EFFECT, Macedonia
Eleonora Veninova (director)
Goce Kralevski (producer)
DNF FILMS
Logline: A troubled teenager disturbs the fragile balance of a married couple when she moves in to stay with them for a couple of days.
THE LESSER EVIL, Bulgaria
Magdalena Ralcheva (director)
Pavlina Jeleva (producer)
GEOPOLY FILM
Logline: Chance circumstances turn a youthful love at the end of the 19th century into an insurmountable and devastating passion that scars the lives of several people. Desire, sin, and a feeling of duty bring two of them together into a tragic entanglement, but they must set off on different paths. Is there a “lesser evil” in this impasse?
THE TROPHY, Bulgaria
Andre Chandelle (director)
Vera Chandelle (producer)
FABRIKATA Film Production
Logline: PAVEL, a former hunter, tracks migrants at the Bulgarian border. His meeting with a Syrian kid will make him change his mind. PAVEL regains his self-esteem and his wife's love, but he has put his feet in a fatal spiral... From hunter, he will become prey...
TRIUMPH, Bulgaria
Peter Valchanov, Kristina Grozeva (directors)
Peter Valchanov, Kristina Grozeva (producers)
ABRAXAS FILM
VIA BALKANIS, Bulgaria
Borislav Mihailovski (director)
Alexander Metodiev, Borislav Mihailovski (producers)
MAGIC STORYLINES
Logline: The Syrian comedian Leyla turns a refugee over a joke on Al-Assad. On the Balkan route to Paris she’s caught by Bulgarian migrant hunters and gets traded from their German right-wing instructor to an Italian bar owner. Now her ally is a local boy for hire, her only tool is comedy.
WOMEN DO CRY, Bulgaria
Mina Mileva (director/producer)
Vesela Kazakova (director/producer)
ACTIVIST 38
We are pleased to announce the Sofia Meetings 2020 selection for Works in Progress:
FICTION FEATURE FILMS
A BULGARIAN SHIP IS SINKING…
Bulgaria
Director Petrinel Gochev
Producers Galina Toneva, Kiril Kirilov
Production GALA FILM
BEAUTIFUL HELEN
Georgia
Director George Ovashvili
Producer George Ovashvili
Production WAGONNET FILMS
CALL ME SHAKESPEARE
Bulgaria
Director Valery Iordanov
Producers Borislav Chouchkov, Victor Chouchkov
Production THE CHOUCHKOV BROTHERS
FEAR
Bulgaria
Director Ivaylo Hristov
Producer Assen Vladimirov
Production PROFILM
FEBRUARY
Bulgaria
Director Kamen Kalev
Producers Filip Todorov, Kamen Kalev, Celine Chapdaniel, Diane Jassem
Production WATERFRONT FILM
FISHBONE
Bulgaria, Romania
Director Dragomir Sholev
Producers Rossitsa Valkanova, Ada Solomon
Production KLAS FILM, HI FILM
GERMAN LESSONS
Bulgaria, Germany
Director Pavel G. Vesnakov
Producers Monica Balcheva, Orlin Ruevski, Sebastian Weyland
Production MOVIEMENTO, HEIMATHAFEN FILM & MEDIA
GOOD-BYE, JOHNNY
Bulgaria
Director Konstantin Burov
Producer Dobromir Chochov
Production DOLI MEDIA STUDIO
HUMBLE
Bulgaria, Romania
Director Svetoslav Draganov
Producers Svetoslav Draganov and Katya Trichkova, Calin Peter Netzer and Oana Iancu
Production CINEASTE MAUDIT PRODUCTION , PARADA FILM
IN LIMBO
Russia
Director Alexander Hant
Producer Maxim Dobromyslov
Production SCRIPTGURU
INVENTORY
Slovenia
Director Darko Sinko
Producers Vlado Bulajić, Lija Pogačnik
Production DECEMBER
JANUARY
Bulgaria
Director Andrey M Paounov
Producer Vanya Rainova
Production PORTOKAL
LAST CALL
Bulgaria
Director Ivaylo Penchev
Producer Stoyan Stoyanov
Production URBAN MEDIA
LEBENSDORF
Romania
Director Valentin Hotea
Producers Ada Solomon, Diana Paroiu
Production HI FILM
LIBERTE
Republic of Belarus
Director Andrei Kureichik
Producer Valeria Lediaeva
Production BEZBUSLOU ARTS
M (working title)
North Macedonia
Director Vardan Tozija
Producer Atanas Georgiev
Production FOCUS POCUS FILMS
OTHER PEOPLE
Poland
Director Aleksandra Terpińska
Producers Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska, Beata Rzezniczek
Production MADANTS
RIDERS
Slovenia
Director Dominik Mencej
Producer Miha Černec
Production STARAGARA
SCENE LOGANESTENE
Moldova-Romania
Director Nicolae Gaburici
Producers Nicolae Gaburici, Alex Burlac
Production WONDER FILM PRODUCTION
SISTER
North Macedonia
Director Dina Duma
Producer Marija Dimitrova
Production LIST PRODUCTION
SPRING SONG
Serbia
Director Natalija Avramovic
Producers Natalija Avramovic, Nada Savic
Production NACIJA, BESNE SLIKE
DOCUMENTARY FILMS
UNFORGETTABLE
Bulgaria
Director Peter Marchev
Producer Peter Marchev
Production SANTA MARIA MEDIA
LAMENT FOR THE SILENT FOOL
Bulgaria
Director Dimitar Kutmanov
Producer Poli Angelova
Production SCREENING EMOTIONS
SHORT FILMS
EGGSHELLS
Bulgaria
Director Slava Doycheva
Producer Rossitsa Valkanova
Production KLAS FILM
EVERYTHING FOR RIANA
Romania
Director Mihai Gavril Dragolea
Producers Mihai Gavril Dragolea, Ioana Lascăr
Production VAGABOND FILM, DEFILM
GENERATIONS CROSSED
Bulgaria
Director Stephan Ganoff
Producers Ekaterina Voinova, Enno Endlicher
Production PRODEKA