List of Bulgarian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

This is the list of Bulgarian submissions for the Academy Award in the Best Foreign Film category. Since 1970, Bulgaria has submitted eighteen films for consideration, although none have yet been nominated for the award. All films were primarily in Bulgarian.

NOTE: The year listed in the table is that of the Academy Award ceremony. However, films were selected the previous year, i.e. among Bulgarian films premiering between October 2006 and September 2007, the official Oscar selection was announced in October 2007 to compete for the 2008 Academy Award.

The Bulgarian films selected for this category generally fall into three categories- those submitted by the Communist People's Republic of Bulgaria (7 films, submitted for the 1972-1990 award ceremonies), those made during the Post-Communist transition period where film output was extremely limited (3 films, 1991-2000) and films made after the national film industry had recovered (8 films, 2001-present).

Communist-era submissions (1971-1989)

The People’s Republic of Bulgaria deemed seven films worthy of Oscar consideration, choosing primarily apolitical films, particularly nationalist dramas showcasing Bulgarian history.

The most famous of these was “The Goat Horn”, a revenge drama based on a famous Bulgarian folktale and considered one of the greatest Bulgarian films of all-time. Set in the 18th century, four bandits rape and kill a woman in front of her husband and young daughter. The husband then raises his daughter as a boy, specifically to take revenge. “Khan Asparoukh”, is an epic 9th century drama about Bulgaria’s greatest King Asparoukh, who defeated the country against the Byzantines and founded the Bulgarian nation. “Time of Violence” is a 17th century tale about the invasion of a Christian region by the Janissaries- Bulgarian youths kidnapped as children by the Ottoman Turks and raised as Muslims in order to violently convert their home villages. The latter film was selected for the Oscars in the midst of the political turmoil that led to the Communist overthrow.

Three other dramas bordered on the surreal. Two films by Christo Christov were selected in the 1970s: “The Last Summer”, about a rural town whose residents are forced to go elsewhere when a new dam floods the area, and “The Barrier”, a romance between a middle-aged composer and the eccentric (insane?) woman to whom he gives shelter in his home. “Where Do We Go From Here?” is the story of a director cruelly manipulating 26 aspiring actors & actresses trying to win an acting competition.

The first known Bulgarian submission was the children’s comedy film “Porcupines Are Born without Bristles”, which was selected in Fall 1971 to compete for the 1972 Oscars.

Post-Communist Transition Period (1990-2000)

After the fall of Communism and the end of generous state subsidies, Bulgarian film output fell drastically. In 1999, not a single Bulgarian film was released. Those few films that were released took advantage of the new lack of censorship to harshly attack the excesses of the old regime. All three films submitted for consideration to the Oscars in this time period were anti-Communist films. "Margarit & Margarita", the story of two rebellious youths who fall in love, was banned shortly before the 1989 Revolution and was released shortly after. "The Well" tells the story of how Communism was imposed with an iron fist after the end of the Second World War. In "The Canary Season" we hear the tragic life story of a woman as retold to her teenage son who wants to know the identity of his real father, in which she recounts her rape and forced marriage at the hands of the regime.

The 2000s (2001-Present)

Prior to "Letter to America", every movie on this list had been produced by the respected film studio ‘Boyana Film. Starting with "America", films from the new and independent studios began to be chosen for the first time. As the number of internationally recognized Bulgarian films increased, multiple films began to be considered each year. In the 2006 and 2007 selection process, four and five semi-finalists were considered respectively.

Since Fall 2000, Bulgaria has never failed to submit a film for consideration in the category. Three out of the eight films were directed by women, including one by Milena Andonova, the daughter of "Goat Horn" director Melodi Andonov.

Recent films selected have covered a wide variety of genres, with a special emphasis on stories from the Bulgarian countryside. In "Letter to America", a man from Sofia is required to visit the ancestral village of his childhood friend in search of a song that will help him recover from an accident suffered in the United States. "Fate As a Rat" is a black comedy about three crass men living in a seaside town in the late 1980s. "Warming Up Yesterday’s Lunch" follows a documentary film crew into the forests of Macedonia to track down and interview an elderly woman with a fascinating family history. "Journey to Jerusalem" is about two German-Jewish children escaping the Nazis who end up in Bulgaria during WWII, and the traveling theatrical troupe who tries to help them reach their relatives in Palestine. "Mila From Mars", arguably the most-awarded film in Bulgaria’s recent cinematic history, follows a pregnant teen who escapes to a remote village to give birth to her child. "Stolen Eyes" features an unlikely romance (of sorts) between an ethnic Bulgarian soldier and an ethnic Turkish woman during the Communist regime’s assimilation campaign, in which thousands of Turks fled the country. "Monkeys in Winter" is a female-driven film telling the stories of three women living 20 years apart, from the 1960s to the 1980s. "Warden of the Dead" is the story of a telekinetic pre-teen who lives in a cemetery and how he brings together a father and daughter who have never known each other.

Omissions

Perhaps the most surprising omission from this list was the film "Emigrants", which had actually beat out three of the selected films- "Letter to America", "Warming Up Yesterday’s Lunch" and "Fate As a Rat"- to win the 2003 Bulgarian National Film Awards (covering all films released 2000-2002). [ [http://www.filmmakersbg.org/awards-years-eng.htm UBFM's AWARDS by years ] ]

Trivia

The first and only Bulgarian film to get a US video release, "The Canary Season", was given an English-subtitled VHS video release (now out-of-print) in 1998. Many of the other films on the list were released in Bulgaria with English subtitles.

As of 2007, the Bulgarian submission is chosen by the newly-formed Bulgarian National Film Council. Prior to 2007, the responsibility went to the Bulgarian National Council on Cinema. The next Bulgarian selection is expecting to be announced in September 2008. Among the more high-profile contenders are "The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner", winner of the Best Bulgarian Film Award & Audience Award at the 2008 Sofia International Film Festival, "Seamstresses", "Which Way Today?" (a sequel to the 1989 contender with the same director & cast) and "Inner Voice" (by previously submitted director, Milena Andonova).

References