why the last of the bulgarians are all optimists
Last Updated : GMT 06:49:16
Arab Today, arab today
Arab Today, arab today
Last Updated : GMT 06:49:16
Arab Today, arab today

who still laughs at the idea

Why the 'last of the Bulgarians' are all optimists

Arab Today, arab today

Arab Today, arab today Why the 'last of the Bulgarians' are all optimists

Why the 'last of the Bulgarians' are all optimists
Paris - AFP

Stephan Komandarev's latest film started as a joke.

"I was in a taxi talking to the driver when he asked me, 'Do you know why Bulgaria is the Land of Optimists?'" said Komandarev, who still laughs at the idea.

"It's the Land of Optimists because all the pessimists and the realists have already left," the driver told him.

That bitter joke set the film-maker, the first Bulgarian ever to be shortlisted for the Oscars, thinking.

The Balkan country has lost a fifth or more of its population since the fall of Communism despite becoming a member the EU a decade ago.

"There were nine million of us when the wall came down, and we are now around five million. And there hasn't been a war," the director told AFP.

Official figures put Bulgaria's population closer to seven million -- statistics Komandarev says are contested, claiming they do not take into account millions of Bulgarians who spend most of the year working abroad.

Whatever the figure, experts agree Bulgaria's population is likely to become the fastest-shrinking in the world.

- Taxi driver priests -

So Komandarev set out to make a kind of "Canterbury Tales" of the disappearing Bulgarians told through the taxi drivers of the capital Sofia and their passengers.

Over the course of a day and a night, "Directions" -- or "Taxi Sofia" as it is called in some countries -- follows teachers, businessmen and even a priest driving taxis to make ends meet.

"There are three priests driving taxis right now in Sofia," said Komandarev.

"Anyone who has lost their job or who is paid very little, like school teachers and academics, drive taxis at night. These people see real life on the streets, not just the life we see on television."

The taxi driver who told Komandarev the joke was a professor of nuclear physics at the country's Academy of Sciences until he lost his job during the "interminable transition" to the market economy, which has already lasted 27 years in Bulgaria.

"We have been waiting for what seems like several lifetimes for the invisible hand of the market to sort everything out," said the director, who had an international hit with his upbeat "The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner".

"In the meantime, we have lost our social system and education system. I am not nostalgic for Communism -- I was so happy when it ended -- but we destroyed things that we should have kept," Komandarev argued.

He said the EU's poorest state had "gone from for totalitarianism to extreme capitalism.

"The impression you get from the media is that everything is going great. 'We are in the EU!' But the reality is people are getting poorer, the level of education is falling and old people are living in a terrible way," he said.

- 'Permanent ex-Communist' elite -

Komandarev insists his film's portrait of the travails of "transition" holds true not just for Bulgaria but for several Eastern Europe countries.

The film bible Variety hailed it as a "clever, fleet-footed" snapshot of Bulgarians left behind, and praised its "poignant accuracy and flashes of wry humour", comparing its favourably with Jim Jarmusch's "Night on Earth".

It is not the first time the director has taken on his country's woes. He tackled the rural exodus in his 2010 documentary "The Town of the Badante Women" about a community whose women had all left for Italy to look after old people there.

His last feature, "Judgment" took on the prickly subject of the migrant crisis from the point of view of a former border guard who ends up smuggling Syrian refugees over the frontier from Turkey on which Bulgaria has now built a fence.

With such engagement, Komandarev, 51, admits that he has come under pressure to enter politics himself.

"I have been asked several times but I have always refused. My films are my strength. Ten years ago I was a lot more optimistic than I am now."

And Komandarev is despairing of what he calls a "real lack of renewal" at the top.

"Those who formed the Communist elite," he said, "are still in power or their families hold great economic power. They have done a 180-degree switch, and now they are for the market.

"But it is the same people..."

Source: AFP

arabstoday
arabstoday

Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

why the last of the bulgarians are all optimists why the last of the bulgarians are all optimists

 



Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

why the last of the bulgarians are all optimists why the last of the bulgarians are all optimists

 



GMT 13:42 2015 Saturday ,04 April

Libyan warplane targets camp in Gharyan town

GMT 15:14 2017 Wednesday ,01 March

UN documents nearly 1,500 child soldiers in Yemen

GMT 07:24 2017 Sunday ,01 October

Mexico unlikely to find more quake survivors

GMT 16:15 2015 Wednesday ,11 November

German intelligence 'spied' on Fabius, FBI, UN bodies

GMT 01:32 2017 Saturday ,15 April

Russia's Putin earns about 157,000 USD in 2016

GMT 16:30 2017 Saturday ,15 July

Minister of planning gives priority

GMT 19:45 2017 Wednesday ,05 April

President of Senegal Meets Attorney General

GMT 05:18 2017 Thursday ,21 September

Over 80 missing after migrant boat sinks off Libya

GMT 19:22 2017 Saturday ,01 April

UN: Number of Syrian Refugees Tops 5 million

GMT 15:16 2016 Thursday ,29 September

FBI to put up database on police use of deadly force

GMT 05:06 2016 Friday ,30 September

Indian markets open flat

GMT 01:57 2017 Tuesday ,10 October

Twin suicide bombs kill 13 near Mogadishu airport

GMT 02:25 2017 Friday ,08 September

UAE celebrates National Day at Expo 2017 Astana

GMT 06:19 2017 Sunday ,08 January

Bleaching poses the gravest threat to coral reefs

GMT 12:35 2017 Monday ,18 September

Elham Shahin happy for “Day for Women”

GMT 09:46 2017 Thursday ,22 June

US existing home sales unexpectedly rise in May

GMT 02:36 2017 Tuesday ,10 January

US embassy condemns Al-Arish suicide attack

GMT 10:34 2017 Sunday ,26 November

czar faces graft probe
Arab Today, arab today
 
 Arab Today Facebook,arab today facebook  Arab Today Twitter,arab today twitter Arab Today Rss,arab today rss  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday
بناية النخيل - رأس النبع _ خلف السفارة الفرنسية _بيروت - لبنان
arabstoday, Arabstoday, Arabstoday