Stefan Komandarev

Motivation

Kinoatelje is awarding the Darko Bratina 2023 award to Bulgarian director Stephan Komandarev for his in-depth film opus of documentaries and feature films, which in the past three decades has marked not only Bulgarian but also European cinema with the recognizable narrative of a critical thinker of modernity.

In his role as a chronicler of the socio-political conditions of the working class, Komandarev not only uses the film as a means of criticizing the power structure and protest in the interest of social reform, but with the cinematic language of social realism he persistently reflects on a country at an eternal crossroads, full of contradictions and a painful past. It forces the viewer to question the meaning of ideology and religion, national and ethnic borders, social imbalances and political corruption. The director understands social justice as the key to the transition to a society in which equality and solidarity are fundamental values, and individual dignity is inalienable.

I joke with my friends that a doctor is always a doctor. In this as well as in the previous film, somehow our patient is Bulgarian society - not only Bulgarian society, but European society, 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And of course we try to treat this society with some humor, some drama. It might be a diagnosis, it might be psychotherapy, it might be an autopsy, it might be an operation. [Laughs.] I don't know. The audience will tell. But at least we try, because I think that's the duty of every filmmaker - not so much to entertain, but to raise questions. Present the problems. And maybe something will happen. I believe that film can change things.

- Stephan Komandarev, from a magazine interview Variety

The desire for equality and economic security - social stratification in Bulgaria is enormous - represents the basic narrative in Stefan Komandarev's films. This is also why the viewer is constantly confronted with the despair of an individual in the struggle for bare survival..., or as one of its protagonists says: "Europe" ends here, and never begins.

- Patricija Maličev, program selector of the Tribute to Vision festival

Biography

Stephan Komandarev is one of the most internationally recognized and awarded modern Bulgarian filmmakers, he works as a director, producer and screenwriter. He was born in 1966 in Sofia, then still the capital of the communist People's Republic of Bulgaria. At first, he did not decide on studies that would lead to filmmaking, but his choice of study direction was already dictated by the desire to carefully observe and understand, to diagnose the inner impulses of a person. In 1993, he graduated in medicine from the Faculty of Medicine in Sofia and then worked as a psychiatrist at the pediatric clinic there for four years. His drive for social and psychological diagnoses then transformed, changed the discourse: he went to the chair of film and TV directing at the New Bulgarian University, where he received his second degree in 1998.

The very next year, he founded his own production company, Argo Film. They started producing short films, commercials and music videos. His feature debut, Pansion za kučeta (Pension for dogs), which premiered in 2001 at the Berlin International Film Festival, was quickly produced. He then made two documentaries, Hljab nad ogradata (Bread Over the Fence, 2002) and Azbuka na nadejdata (Abeceda upanja, 2003), which explore the borders between villages, countries and religions, and in the cracks between them discover the meaning of community and views into a possibly indefinite future.

Despite the successes, the long-term path to the second feature film was difficult, marked by more stumbling blocks and obstacles than open doors. You wouldn't have guessed that from the film's title. Komandarev's second feature-length defiantly and optimistically says: The world is big and the solution is hiding around the corner. The script for it was created based on the literary proposal of the autobiographical novel by the Bulgarian writer Ilija Trojanov. It was filmed in four different countries and in five languages, Slovenian producer Danijel Hočevar and Vertigo production company also participated in the international co-production. In the film, one of the protagonists was portrayed by the legendary Serbian actor Miki Manojlović, who also later remained in the acting ensemble of Komandare's films. The film was shortlisted for the Foreign Language Academy Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and it also broke the national record for theatrical release, as it was distributed in 93 countries. He then returned to documentary with The Town of Badante Women, a portrait of northwestern Bulgaria, home to Varshets, a town without women. While women earn money as carers of the elderly and sick or "badante" in Italy, men take on all jobs, even those that are otherwise alien to them in terms of gender roles. With the film Sadilišteto (The Judgement, 2014), he moved to the Bulgarian-Turkish-Greek border with a story about current migrations during the Syrian war, which hold a mirror to the flight from the countries of the Eastern Bloc. This was followed by the creation of the "Bulgarian trilogy" about social inequality and moral dilemmas that plague Bulgaria and Europe more broadly. As part of the trilogy, the feature films Posoki (Smeri, 2017) and V krag (Krogi, 2019) were created, the first of which premiered in the Un Certain Regard competition program, a section of the Cannes Film Festival. As he says himself, in these films he is interested in "drawing a realistic picture of modern Bulgaria." Before finishing the trilogy, he also made the documentary Life from Life (2021), which focuses on the difficult and long-term wait for organ transplants in Bulgaria. His new drama Blaga's Lessons, which is the final part of the Bulgarian trilogy, will have its world premiere at the international film festival in Karlovy Vary. He once again focused on modern social reality, this time through the eyes of a retired teacher who becomes a victim of a phone scam, which forces her to work for phone fraudsters. "Conscientious presentation and understanding of reality is the first condition for changing it, the only condition for active action," says the director.   Komandarev lives in Sofia, is a lecturer at the film department of the New Bulgarian University, a member of the Association of Bulgarian Film Directors, the Association of Bulgarian Film Producers and the European Film Academy.

Selected filmography

2023: Blagine lekcije (Bolgarija, 114')

2019: V krogu (Bolgarija, Srbija, Francija, 106')

2017: Smeri (Bolgarija, Severna Makedonija, Nemčija, 103')

2014: Sodba (Bolgarija, Nemčija, Hrvaška, Makedonija, 107')

2009: Mesto negovalk (Bolgarija, 70')

2008: Svet je velik in rešitev se skriva za vogalom (Bolgarija, Slovenija, Nemčija, 105')

2004: Abeceda upanja (Bolgarija, 56')