A new feature film about revolutionary poet and publicist Hristo Botev, presenting his heroism through little-known facts, is to have its premiere on 3 March. Director of the film is Maxim Genchev.

Botev traces the events of 1876

After 5 centuries of Ottoman domination, Bulgarians faced a fateful choice – freedom or death. In Romania, several young revolutionaries drew up a plan for the liberation of Bulgaria. Committees inside the country as well as expats started organizing an uprising.

Hristo Botev – poet, publicist and teacher – laid down his pen to lead 200 men to help the uprising. Dressed as ordinary passengers, the revolutionaries boarded the Austro-Hungarian passenger ship Radetzky, abducted it and forced the captain to dock on the Bulgarian side of the Danube, near Kozloduy.

“We follow very closely the biography of Hristo Botev by Bulgaria’s first novelist – Zahari Stoyanov,” the film’s director Maxim Genchev says for the BNR. “Botev was a publicist and a poet, he was a sophisticated man, and that is something the writer describes very well.”

Young actor Deyan Zhekov stars as Hristo Botev. Growing up, the actor actually lived in a street called Milin Kamuk in Burgas – Milin Kamuk is the name of a locality where the first battle by Botev and his revolutionaries played out.

“Deyan is a unique character, I was barely able to hold him back,” Maxim Genchev says. “He is cut out for the role, that is why I let him act as he felt he should. He carries Botev in his heart.”

The actor says he accepted the role because people like Hristo Botev should be talked about – “a brave, free and disappointed man who believed in something bigger than himself and was ready to sacrifice himself for what he believed in.”

“The invitation came after the film director watched the play The Thessaloniki Conspirators featuring some of my friends who are students, and he liked their acting,” Deyan Zhekov says. “And as there is a lot in common between the play and the film, he asked them whether they knew an actor resembling Hristo Botev and with an interest in him. Soon after that I met Maxim Genchev, we had two casting sessions and he said he was happy with what he had seen. For my part I told him that Botev was my favourite poet, that I adore him and have been reading his poetry since childhood. But I said I would have to think about it because it is such a huge responsibility. Ultimately I did my very best, and I hope I have succeeded even though Botev is someone very difficult to portray as a full-blooded figure.”

The film Botev was shot on donations by many Bulgarians, in this country and abroad, and in partnership with public service TV BNT. “The idea is for the film to be by the people for the people,” Deyan Zhekov says. Many volunteers from patriotic clubs from all over the country took part in the mass scenes – the capturing of Radetsky, the landing of Botev and his men on the river bank etc.

After the film premieres in cinemas it will be screened in schools.

Interviews by BNR-Burgas and BNR-Stara Zagora

Editing by Diana Tsankova