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Bulgaria

Peter Todorov • Direttore, Bulgarian National Film Center

“I bulgari amano il cinema nazionale”

di 

- Abbiamo parlato con il nuovo direttore del Bulgarian National Film Center, che sembra determinato a modernizzare l'istituto responsabile della salute dell'industria cinematografica locale

Peter Todorov • Direttore, Bulgarian National Film Center

Questo articolo è disponibile in inglese.

Following a 25-year career in film exhibition, film production and festival organising, Peter Todorov was appointed head of the Bulgarian National Film Centre in February, for a five-year term. We took the opportunity to pick his brain about his main priorities regarding the future of the institution.

Cineuropa: What is your main priority as the new head of the Centre?
Peter Todorov: My immediate priorities are two: the first one is to get the advisory body of the Film Centre, called the Finance Committee, to work. This commission operates and distributes funding on behalf of the Bulgarian Film Industry Law and, by that law, it should be composed of experts, mostly working at the Centre. Unfortunately, at present, there are no such experts, so we have to hire external ones. I have asked for an urgent meeting with the Minister of Culture [Atanas Atanasov] to discuss increasing the number of experts working at the Centre. The staff on payroll has not changed since its establishment, i.e. 13 people, but at present the team consists of only 11. Since 2021 this Financial Committee is responsible for the dissemination of a much bigger budget than in previous years. These circumstances have led to an administrative collapse during 2021 and actually to the financing of far fewer projects than the annual budget would have allowed.

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My other priority is the digitalisation of the Centre. The film industry has always been one of the fastest growing industries, offering new production technologies and access to content through various channels. I cannot accept that in 2022 all film projects in Bulgaria under different schemes are to be submitted and administered on paper. Since my first day in office, I was flooded with paper. I have already held meetings with several of the largest software companies and they are to help us in the process of becoming a modern digital institution.

What will the Centre need to increase its efficiency in supporting local film production? Just more funding or maybe a change of strategy? What would this strategy look like?
A reorganisation of the Centre itself is needed. All internal procedures for different application schemes need to be written and digitalised, new people have to be welcomed and incorporated in order to increase the efficiency of the Centre. This process, which the Centre cannot administer, would be transferred to an external company or government agency.

In my opinion, a budget increase is not necessary. The budget for 2022 is enough and this is the opinion of everyone who knows and works in the cinema industry. The biggest fear is that, again, it will be impossible to absorb the entire planned budget, and the money will have to be returned to the state budget at the end of the year, a thing that indeed happened in 2021. During my first ten days in office, I signed 25 contracts with beneficiaries for almost €1 million. The national strategy includes fairer funding processes and greater control over the spending of public funds by the beneficiaries of funding.

There is a conflict between the Bulgarian film community and the local television operators who do not pay royalties properly. Does the Centre have any power in this issue?
Yes, I am aware of the problem of disproportionate or loss of royalties in the transmission of content and the fact that almost no funds reach the authors of the content. Unfortunately, the Centre has no legal power to address this issue. Still, a new department will be set up this month to moderate the communication between the collective copyright management organisations, which merged last month into a large organisation called Arts, and local broadcasters.

Both parties are interested in finding a solution, as they are interconnected. If there were no Bulgarian content, local broadcasters would suffer. Meetings will be organised and debates are planned between the stakeholders to find balance between all participants in the creative environment. The same department will fight against piracy of copyrighted content - a severe problem in Bulgaria. In this aspect, the Centre will work with all state bodies in order to combat the piracy.

When funding is scarce, competition among projects is so fierce that the filmmaking community can become very divided. Would you say that this is a problem in Bulgaria?
This is a problem even when the funds are sufficient. The Bulgarian film community is no exception, and there are various calls for the Centre to be a more predictable partner. As I said, during the first days in office, I held a general meeting with all participants in the process and many individual meetings with representatives of various unions. What I noticed then is that we all have a common goal, regardless of the differences and degrees of separation and regardless of whether being a state representative or a filmmaker.

Unfortunately, in Bulgaria, I see an artificial division between auteur or festival cinema and mass or commercial cinema. As a long-term participant in the process, for me such division does not exist, but there is a clear separation between honest and dishonest films, and in recent years, viewers can increasingly distinguish between them.

Would you say the Bulgarian audience is reticent towards domestic films? What can be done to improve attendance numbers for local releases?
No, on the contrary. The Bulgarian audience is no different from any other audience who cherishes and watches local productions. Last year the viewership of Bulgarian films reached 35% of the national box office. There are two Bulgarian films in the national top 5 for 2021. This year also started very strongly, again with two Bulgarian films heading the national box office, and I believe this is because the authors and producers are honest with the audience. They asked the viewers to go to the cinemas and to see their film. They paid greater attention to the distribution, promotion, advertising, and cinema screenings, and ultimately the results are there. Bulgarians love their national cinema.

And for the results to be even better, the Centre has to work more closely with the producers so the financed films are able to reach their audience. As for now, 99% of the financial support goes into the production of a film and only 1% goes into the distribution. In the past, many Bulgarian filmmakers decided to distribute their films themselves. Unfortunately, this model has never worked well anywhere because film distribution, although a part of the film industry, is a radically different endeavour.

In addition to the above, it is necessary to consider the new channels for access to content. Online platforms have taken centre stage in the last two years of the pandemic. All participants in the process, the Centre as a state body and the filmmakers, have to adopt fair practices to effectively use these channels.

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