During an early summer when it was raining cats and dogs in Sozopol on the Black Sea, a man arrived to the ancient town. He had brought with him ten bottles of vodka to drown his blues. That Sozopol has little in common with the present-day tourist hub with dozens hotels, pubs and shops invaded by crowds of tourists. The camera has instead captured an incredibly beautiful sea - at times peaceful or rough, glimmering depths and clean beaches: plus an old wooden house the keeps painful memories and a lot of guilt. Can this place heal the wounds of the past, become the source of hope and meaning of the present?

The Sinking of Sozopol shot on the eponymous novel by Ina Valtchanova is looking for the answers. The film is directed by Kostadin Bonev who has been often awarded for his documentary and feature films. The Sinking of Sozopol was recently given Best Screenplay Prize and Best Actress Prize to Snezhina Petrova at the Golden Rose Festival of Bulgarian Feature Films. The movie gave the start to the Cinemania Autumn Festival in Sofia.

We asked film director Kostadin Bonev about the strengths of Ina Valtchanova's script. 

"It only seldom happens to me to like a novel immediately and instantly decide that I want to base a film on it. And this was exactly the case this time. At the very first reading the novel was strikingly cinematographic to me and I got excited. This excitement eclipsed the challenges of the script but I still teamed up with Ina for three to four years of work on the text.”

The movie comes up with a fusion of past, present and day-dreaming. Kostadin Bonev says more:

"Past and present are invariably woven into our lives. They exist together. We are constantly in contact with our family and friends who have died and we ask them our questions. We always carry with us our memories of 20 to 30 years ago, and they are still vivid. In this sense, man can find himself in a state when his notion of the past is more real than his present circumstances.”

We asked Kostadin Bonev to describe his Sozopol.

„It is a very nice Sosopol, because I really love that town and I have come to love it even more because of the film. I hope the audience will find good reasons to love Sozopol and they might see it from a different angle while watching the film.”

The soundtrack to the film The Sinking of Sozopol was written by Nikolay Ivanov, founder of the first Bulgarian ethno-ambient band, OM. Kostadin Bonev has been working with him for years and highly appreciates his work. In this particular case the music plays an important role given that the film counts on intuitive messages. This creates an intense atmosphere of Sozopol that is also due to the work of the Director of Photography Konstantin Zankov. „I will be happy if audiences - in Bulgaria and abroad - like this film. We are working hard for its promotion at various festivals”, concludes film-director Kostadin Bonev.

English: Daniela Konstantinova