29/11/2024 - The Bulgarian director and German producer break down their upcoming film, which won the Eurimages Co-production Development Award at Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event

Bulgarian writer-director Eliza Petkova and German producer Nicolas Kronauer spoke to Cineuropa following their victory in securing the Eurimages Co-production Development Award with their project The Worker during the recent Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event (see the news). The accolade is accompanied by a €20,000 cash prize.

Cineuropa: Can you tell us about the inspiration behind The Worker and the themes it explores?
Eliza Petkova: The Worker is inspired by the stories of many Bulgarian Roma in Berlin whom I personally accompanied in a Roma centre, where I was involved in social work. What the clients had in common was that they all came to Germany with high hopes, expecting prosperity and security, and instead, they ended up in the grey area of illegal work, where they were mercilessly exploited.

The movie stands for the clash between illusion and reality, for the dissonance between what we hope for and what actually awaits us in the world. If Georgi, the main character, does not find the carefree and idealised world he expected in Berlin, he at least begins to invent it and to pretend he has a successful life for his family, whom he left behind in Bulgaria. In his search for recognition and his own role in society, he becomes entangled in a web of lies from which there is no turning back. He is forced to overstep not only his own boundaries, but often those of others as well. In the process, his image of masculinity is also challenged. Georgi has to constantly change jobs and places, and he finds it increasingly difficult to cope with the discrepancy between his real life and the image he presents to the outside world. Georgi is an ambivalent character, who cannot be categorised as either a victim or a hero – he carries within him the complexity of a real human individual, with whom we sometimes sympathise and who sometimes irritates us.

The film will be shot in original locations, and our goal is to involve as many people from the respective milieu as possible as actors in order to create the greatest possible authenticity in the narrative. Aesthetically, we intend to create images with a somewhat radical décadrage that reflects the character's displacement in each situation. The Worker is meant to be a poetic, observational film that also leaves room for absurdity and selective artistic exaggeration.

The film reflects today's reality of many undocumented workers who receive very little money for their hard work and live without rights in this society to continue to guarantee an economy whose growth is based on naked exploitation.

What stage is the project currently at, and what are your immediate next steps?
EP: We are currently in the financing phase, and the next steps will be location scouting, casting and developing the camera concept. As a director, it is very important for me to have enough rehearsal time with the actors to prepare them for their roles. My approach to dialogue is mostly based on improvisation, so the dialogue in the script only serves as a template to set up the conflicts and themes. It's important to me that the performance is organic and natural, and improvisation as a way of working requires a lot more preparation. Because we are interested in original locations, the search is, in some ways, more time-consuming than transforming studios into the locations we are looking for. We also have to put the team together. Our goal is to work with a small team, so it is even more important to find the right partners for this project.

Nicolas Kronauer: There are already three producers attached to the project: Karsten Stöter, of ROW Pictures in Leipzig; Veselka Kiryakova, of Red Carpet Films in Sofia; and me, from Fourmat Film in Frankfurt. Nevertheless, we are looking for a third country to join, as well as for world sales representation.

How would you describe your experience at this year’s Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event?
NK: It’s a very welcoming festival with a fulfilling industry section. We had a lot of good talks and discussions, and made a lot of new contacts. Of course, winning the Eurimages Co-production Development Award also contributed to the experience. But also, regardless of the project itself, it was extremely nice having exchanges with all of our colleagues about the current production situations in all of those different countries, and being able to see what they are working on.

How do you intend to utilise the award to advance your project?
NK: Well, as we are in financing and setting up the co-production, it can really help us finalise our package, meet up again with contacts we have just made and get everything in place. Working with three different countries on this project is very enriching, but it’s also a logistical challenge, especially at this early stage, when we usually don’t have any money in place. That’s why the Eurimages Award really helps make things possible. And of course, there are some pre-production tasks to get started with as well.

EP: Our filming locations are in Bulgaria and in three German cities. It is very important to start selecting the locations as early as possible, which requires a lot of travelling and research. The development of a storyboard at the respective locations will accompany this process. In addition, we have to meet people from the milieu, conduct interviews with them and select suitable individuals for the cast. These processes are long and arduous, and the Eurimages Co-production Development Award allows us to start them as early as possible. This is a recognition that we greatly appreciate and enables us to invest even more energy in this project.

Do you have an estimate of when your film will be ready?
NK: We are still in the middle of financing, so the shoot might take place in early 2026. So, we could be aiming for festival premieres from the end of 2026 onwards. But that’s just an estimate for now; we first need to get our financing in place and develop the co-production.