Dumbo the elephant is making a comeback in a new dazzling production with characters of flesh and blood and a message that never grows stale – if we believe in ourselves, in what makes us special, we can reach out for the sky and fly.

The story of the animal with big ears unfolds at the circus, and there, alongside the big Hollywood stars, there is a Bulgarian girl, a gymnast – Radina Filipova.

One summer day of 2017 Radina was walking towards the seashore when her telephone rang and a whole new world opened up before her.

“I was going to the beach when a friend called, a former gymnast who is now in the circus,” Radina remembers. “She told me there was a last-minute opening in the Disney production. I had to send documents, photographs and videos right away to find out whether I would be approved – the selection was very serious and everyone had auditioned (I had never before had so many measurements taken – literary from hand to foot). So I turned the car around and went home, and about four hours later I had done everything that was needed. The next day I was approval and a few days later flew to London for the shoot.”

Radina was included in the circus choreography of the remake of Dumbo, the animated tale that first appeared in 1941. The premiere in Los Angeles on 11 March was a huge success. In Bulgaria the film will hit the screen on 29 March.

“My role required skills that can only be acquired in gymnastics. We had one month to prepare and we practiced all day long because we needed to attain absolute rhythm. It was hard but in the end it was perfect – as you will soon see.”

In Tim Burton’s glamourous circus world only the dancers, the jugglers and the other actors are real. The animals, and Dumbo himself are the result of visual effects brought to perfection, Radina says.

“On the first day of shooting we were all eager to see the big stars - Colin Farrell, Danny DeVito, Michael Keaton, Eva Green, and they were all there on the dot,” Radina says. “On the set everything is really well organized, everybody knows exactly when they should take their place to the minute. I met the lead actors and managed to exchange a few words with them. What impressed me was that they are so down-to-earth, and the fact they treated us all with so much respect. And they were always on time – things that are not easy to come by.”

But these are things Radina learnt when she was a little girl in the rhythmic gymnastics training hall when she joined the team of the “golden girls” of Bulgaria. A serious knee injury cut her sports career short when she was barely 18, but not before she saw her dream come true – she took part in a world championship against her doctor’s advice. Three years later she decided to forget the pain, remember only the good things and move on. She started as a rhythmic gymnastics judge, assisted her personal trainer Filipa Filipova in the training hall, went into the fashion industry, and is soon to graduate business administration from the university in Varna. And as she has now has some experience with cinema, alongside some of the most famous names in Hollywood, she now has dreams of Hollywood stardom. And Dumbo is a wonderful inspiration for just that – if one believes one shall find a way. “When you do the thing you love, it gives you wings,” says Radina.

English: Milena Daynova