“Filmmaking is my dream and vocation”, young director Maya Vitkova states. On January 13, the day of the Bulgarian cinema, we talk with her on her debut feature movie – Viktoria. It is the first feature entry at the contest program of the Sundance Film Festival – one of the most prestigious festivals for independent film-making across the globe, held in the USA. The movie has been selected amidst 13,000 other works. The 29^th edition of the festival kicks off on January 16, it will last 10 days and Viktoria’s first screening will be on January 19 in the state of Utah. A total of 12 titles from different parts of the globe will compete for the big prize. The Bulgarian – Romanian coproduction will be presented by Maya personally, together with leading actresses Irmena Chichikova, Kalina and Daria Vitkovi – a nice ending to an adventure that has lasted for nearly a decade.

“Last year we showed a 24-minute-long trailer right after the end of the filming process, within the Work in Progress section of the Sarajevo Film Festival – it is for industry purposes only and is not open for the audience. Then someone, I can’t name him or her, spotted the trailer and recommended us to Sundance. Actually we had an invitation to participate as early as last year, but the movie was not ready yet. The invitation was repeated this year and when we finished the post production in the last minute literally, we sent Viktoria. This participation is something great,” Maya says.

Thus Bulgaria entered the program of Robert Redford’s festival. Margarit and Margarita of director Nikolay Volev had its special screening there back in 1991, followed by 2009’s short movie Omelet. It all started much earlier for Maya Vitkova – at the age of 12 she saw Wild at Heart of David Lynch and from then on she was convinced that she wanted to be a director. During her first year at the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts Maya started to work as an assistant director, entering from one production to another.

“Cinema is a very powerful medium,” the young director says. “It was exactly that power that attracted me. I.e. if you have a message, a story that you want to tell and you succeed in doing that, you can actually influence the destiny of a certain person. I myself gained a lot, as far as film-making was concerned – it meant concentration, it meant the right direction and a goal, which made me really happy.”

Maya’s work as an executive producer of the Eastern Plays movie of director Kamen Kalev back in 2009 was a professional and personal key point to her. The movie, honest and strong with its contemporary messages was invited to Cannes, it won numerous awards at different parts of the globe. Maya says the project meant “lots of sleepless weeks, a great challenge and freedom”.

“Eastern Plays was a really important movie to me and it still remains one. Foreign filmmakers know it when they see the title in my CV and they get really impressed. Some of my closest friends were part of its team. I can be only happy that I had the chance to invest my energy, so that this movie could happen, though in the hard way.”

Maya Vitkova has 4 short movies in her CV. Works of the young director have been screened in Toronto, Athens, Bucharest, Hamburg, Peru, India etc. In 2005 she took the quick and final decision to quit assistant directing and to have her debut with feature movies. She never regretted that decision, because she framed the script of Viktoria on that same day. The movie is funny and sad, just like life itself. It was filmed in 2013 at 4 spots: Sofia, the town of Pernik, situated nearby, the Rila Mountain and Venice. The story tells on the character of the same name, born in the end of the communist era and proclaimed “a baby of the decade” due to the fact she had no navel. 155 minutes trace the test that the political changes in Bulgaria turned into for the relations between Viktoria and her mother Boryana. The latter had sworn not to give birth until the fall of the totalitarian regime.

“I am grateful to this movie, because, in addition to the childhood flashback it also gave me a great team that I will, hopefully, continue to work with. I don’t know if content is the right word, describing my current state of mind. Now I feel relaxed, because I know I didn’t allow a single compromise anywhere and the movie is exactly what we could do. I find it very important that the people I worked with feel the same comfort.”

The official premiere for Bulgaria of Maya Vitkova’s movie will be in September. We voice no expectations till then, only the belief that another “Bulgarian child” of the 7^th art will start to walk on its own.

Written by: Vesela Krasteva

English version: Zhivko Stanchev