At the Variety Global Conversations Summit held on Friday at Lucia Beach in Cannes, Stefan Prohorov, international relation expert at the Bulgarian National Film Center, reported that more than 30 projects — including Disney+’s “Young Woman and the Sea,” which stars Daisy Ridley and is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer — have been awarded Bulgaria’s 25% cash rebate since it launched two years ago.
Prohorov added that the incentive “is fully functional and has been operating really well and rather fast.”
Bulgaria has other benefits, he said, including “an incredible variety of locations […] we have any kind of natural environment.”
Crews are another plus. “We have excellent infrastructure in terms of crew, highly professional at, I would say, very competitive rates, and it’s constantly growing,” he said. “It’s a very young industry. The mid-age of professionals is under 40 among the fully employed people.”
Nu Boyana Film Studio is the main production facility with eight stages, five workshops, a water tank and “everything you can find in terms of the infrastructure of filmmaking … lots of nice toys to play with,” Yariv Lerner, CEO of Nu Boyana, said.
Among the many Hollywood productions that have shot at the studios, Lerner wanted to highlight “Young Woman and the Sea,” the true story of Trudy Ederle, the first woman to swim across the English Channel.
Disney+’s “Young Woman and the Sea” was entirely shot in Bulgaria.
“It’s a beautiful story. But the nice thing about that movie is it was filmed all in Bulgaria, half in Sofia and our studios, and the other half in Varna,” he said. “We managed to utilize the entire country. And at the time, the Ukrainian war started, and a lot of displaced people came, and we were employing 5,000 people on top of [our core crew] as a result of Disney coming into the country and filming.”
“And the one reason they came is they checked the box, and the Disney executive said, ‘Do they have a rebate? Yes, okay, we’ll come and film there.’ And that was the start of a good relationship,” Lerner added.
“The Therapy” was written and produced by Krassimira Belev.
Courtesy of First Draft
Krassimira Belev, a Bulgarian actor, producer and writer, who is premiering her first feature film “The Therapy” at Cannes, said the country also has plenty to offer independent filmmakers. “Bulgaria gives the opportunity to create a film if you don’t have a large budget, which is what we did because of the lower cost of making a film in Bulgaria. I think it’s kind of a gem in the way that this is where you can actually make a film with a lower budget and still have a very talented crew and cast in it.”
She added: “The experience has been amazing. It’s just been really, really wonderful. And people get excited about filming [in Bulgaria]. You can have so many locations, and then when you go and, like, you just talk to people as an independent filmmaker, they get it, they get excited. So they just let you film.”
Bulgarians have a positive mental attitude, Prohorov reiterated. “We are problem solvers. I mean, you don’t need to look for a fixer. Almost anyone can be your fixer in Bulgaria.” Lerner referred to the country as a “hub of creativity,” and added: “So many people that come as filmmakers actually want to buy houses there and live there, and they love Sofia. I liken it to the beginning when Berlin first came on the map after the fall of the Soviet Union. It’s got that vibe to it.”
Martin Petrov, festival director of International Film Festival Glasgow, said his event has a permanent section devoted to the cinema of the Balkans, which includes Bulgaria. “We see amazing talent submitting their films to the festival and wanting to see them being successful internationally. And in terms of Bulgaria, we’ve seen recently a lot of films doing very well at the box office,” he said, citing last year’s “Gundi: Legend of Love.”
Last year, Bulgarian co-production “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for best short, and nabbed an Oscar nomination.
Prohorov said: “We practically have some sort of Bulgarian co-production at every major European award and festival every year.”
Petrov added: “We’ve noticed about 70% of the Bulgarian films that we receive at the festival to view are co-productions, and it is very telling of the collaborative mindset that exists there.”
The Bulgaria panel was moderated by Leo Barraclough, director of international features at Variety.
