Latest in Bulgaria

Bulgaria's Cash Rebate Backs First Projects Bulgaria has officially introduced its 25% cash rebate program, and the first three projects to shoot under the scheme have now been set. The films are: Crossing, a "major studio production" that is keeping details under-wraps; The Herd, a Bulgarian majority coproduction…

The decision to select Ivaylo Hristov's migrant drama Fear (Страх) as Bulgaria’s International Film submission for the 94th Academy Awards has sparked controversy in the Balkan country, triggering a slew of accusations, from an illegitimate vote to “systemic racism, sexism and denialism.” The scandal erupted when…

Bulgaria has selected Ivaylo Hristov's Fear (Страх) as its official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards. Set in a Bulgarian village close to the Turkish border, Fear centers on a widow (Svetlana Yancheva) who encounters an African migrant (Michael Fleming) while hunting in the…

Milko Lazarov’s Ága, which had its world premiere in out of competition as the closing-night film of the 2018 Berlin Film Festival, was selected Tuesday by the Bulgarian National Cinema Council to represent Bulgaria in the upcoming Oscars International Feature Film race. Submissions for the Oscar category formerly…

About five or six years ago, Bulgarian filmmaker Ilian Djevelekov realized how easy it was to buy, install and use miniature hidden cameras. Once only used by professional spies and prohibitively expensive, they were now available to anyone and affordable. He soon started thinking of all the possible issues the use of…

As millions of Americans spend their evenings glued to their sets watching presidential candidates debate like it’s a bloodsport, the evening news in Europe continues to document a crisis that shows no signs of subsiding, specifically the enormous influx of Middle Eastern refugees into the Balkans over the last five…

When Stephan Komandarev’s feature The Judgment was greenlighted at the end of 2011, Europe was just starting to see the first Syrian refugees displaced by the civil war in their home country. The day The Judgment was voted as Bulgaria’s foreign-language Oscar submission, Sept. 4, 2015, was at the height of the…

For some reason, Millennium Films chief Avi Lerner likes to drop scoops in the Bulgarian press. That might mean that his revelation to the Standart that he is negotiating with Meryl Streep, Cameron Diaz and Milla Jovovich to be in The ExpendaBelles is news that could be contained within that country, where Lerner…

The parents of a stuntman killed last year in an explosion on a 2nd unit location for The Expendables 2 in Bulgaria have filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court against NuImage, Millennium Films and individuals associated with the production. The lawsuit filed today alleges negligence in the death of Kun Liu, son of…

Twenty-two years after the fall of communism, the cataclysmic events and their aftermath continue to be on the mind of Eastern European filmmakers. Latest case in point: Bulgaria’s Oscar entry for foreign language film Tilt, a teen love story set against the backdrop of the dramatic changes in Bulgaria in the late…

UPDATE 10 AM: I have now learned that it was a contractor hired by The Expendables crew to trim the shrubbery in front of Bulgaria’s Devetashka Cave that was fined and not the production itself. As for the movie’s producers, I hear they are taking the environmental concerns seriously and met today with representatives…

UPDATE, 4 PM: NuImage/Millennium Films released an update today on the accident that killed one stuntman and seriously injured another last week during filming on a 2nd Unit location for The Expendables 2 on Lake Ognyanovo, Bulgaria. Those men are now identified, and other information is clarified in the statement…