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PRODUCTION Bulgaria

Dragomir Sholev in development with Fishbone

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- The director’s second feature is a co-production between Bulgaria and Romania

Dragomir Sholev in development with Fishbone
Director Dragomir Sholev

Seven years after releasing his first feature, Shelter [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, Bulgarian director Dragomir Sholev is now in development with Fishbone, an absurdist tale scheduled to be shot next spring. The production company is Klas Film, which also staged Shelter, and is represented by Rossitsa Valkanova (Godless [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ralitza Petrova
film profile
]
). Hi Film Productions is the Romanian partner attached to the project.

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The screenplay was written by Sholev based on an idea that he developed with Emanuela Dimitrova and Georgi Merdjanov. The story focuses on Ivo, the manager of a camping site by the Black Sea. An ideal place for quiet holidays, the site's peace is disrupted when Ivo discovers a dead dolphin on the beach. Noticing bullet marks on the body, Ivo alerts the authorities, which can’t – or simply won’t – handle the case. Soon, one way or another, all of the camping site’s customers will become involved in the case.

Valkanova tells Cineuropa that no actors have been chosen yet. The film’s DoP is Nenad Boroevich (Light Thereafter [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, Hristo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Grigor Lefterov
film profile
]
), and the budget amounts to circa €800,000, with €510,000 coming from the Bulgarian National Film Center and approximately €115,000 from its Romanian counterpart.

Sholev tells Cineuropa that the story is based on real events and that it is divided into approximately ten shorter stories, each with a different protagonist and exploring a different point of view on the case. “Fishbone should allow the viewer to think about his relationship with his own environment,” the director says. On his approach, Sholev says he will use “two mutually contradictory film ingredients: I imagine the story to be hyperrealistic (the reactions, topic and dialogue) and surrealistic (the setup and the fish) at the same time.”

The domestic release is expected for the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019.

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