Directing, writing, and photography are my different approaches to the same enormous fascination with the question of what it means to be a human. Trough my work I expore the themes of identity and belonging.
I have lived as a foreigner for half of my life. Moving between Bulgaria, Spain, the USA, and Germany has required me to constantly rebuild myself by adding new layers of identity while trying to protect what remains essential. This tension sits at the heart of my work imposing the refrain of the centuries old shaksperean question.
From Clermont-Ferrand to European Short Pitch and Semaine de la Critique du Cannes, Sarajevo and CINEMED, my work has gradually found its way into the dream rooms. Along the way, gestures of support from Creative Europe, the Bulgarian National Film Center, and the National Cultural Fund, have played a vital role in my development. Georgi Dyulgerov and David Lynch, through a series of unexpected turns, have crossed paths with my work and my life, offering their recognition and urging me forward.
Directing
Filmmaking, for me, is a way of noticing, of catching those fleeting, in between moments that reveal more than words ever could. My stories live in contradictions: intimacy and distance, stillness and movement, reality and the surreal. My characters don’t just exist within a frame; they push against it, searching for something beyond.
Whether developing a film, a scene, or a single frame, I approach each one with the same questions: How do we bring authenticity to the world we are trying to create? Where do we look for it? How do we translate the invisible into particular sound, picture, movement and why?
A Selection of my Work
Cinema is a dialogue, a quiet back and forth between image and viewer. My preferred partners in crime are preoccupied with the same questions, as they serve the story instead of their own ego.
