Directing
While visiting his native country to shoot his first live-action film (PHI 1.618), animation filmmaker Theodore Ushev recounts the highlights of his life in Bulgaria and recalls the various underground artistic movements that have influenced him. Featuring archival footage, film clips and talking-head segments with friends and family, this fascinating documentary takes a personal and political dive into the teeming creative universe developed through experience with people and events by the award-winning director of LIPSETT DIARIES, BLIND VAYSHA and THE PHYSICS OF SORROW.
A dramatic documentary about both the dark and the bright sides of the genius; about the ups and downs of a Bulgarian winner, who is a last-ditcher by nature; about the mission to be a leader, taking the lead in crucial moments; about the real events and the myths; about national self-confidence and national nihilism.
In this earnest movie from Bulgaria, the minds of the young people attending a Young Pioneer (communist youth) camp in the 1950s are shown to be easily molded into a conformist vein. Later, at a "voluntary labor" camp in the 1960s, the final touches are put on their education as proper young communists.
"The back salto ruined my life. Maybe I should do a front one?" The story of phenomenal Bulgarian weightlifter Angel Guenchev's Olympics rise and subsequent fall from grace. Refusing to submit to the fate of a petty criminal in the post-1989 turmoil, he starts from scratch in search of redemption.
