05/04/2011

Goodbye Mama [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Bulgarian actress-director Michelle Bonev will be released domestically in May, after stirring a huge scandal both at home and in Italy.

According to local news agency Novinite, Goodbye Mama will be released on May 6, but the number of screens and the conditions of the release have yet to be determined.

The film caused a scandal thoroughly covered by the Italian press after it received a special prize at the Venice Film Festival. It was discovered that Bonev's award, called Action For Women, was especially created for her at the request of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

On the Bulgarian side, the scandal involved the country's National Film Centre (BFC), in both the production of the film and Bonev's exorbitant presence at Venice.

Bulgaria's Minister of Culture Vezhdi Rashidov has already accepted two resignations in the scandal's aftermath: Alexander Donev, head of the BFC, and the country's Deputy Culture Minister, Dimitar Derelviev. It turned out that the approximately €150,000 of the film's budget came from the state budget, at a time when the local film industry is struggling to overcome a severe financial crisis (read the news on the protests against Bulgaria's film policy).

The Italian press also discovered that the film was sold to Italian state-owned broadcaster RAI for just €1. The project was produced by Romantica Entertainment, which is owned by Bonev.

According to the film's official website, "Goodbye Mama is an intense female family drama that deals with the lives of four women – a mother, two daughters, a grandmother – their conflicts, social barriers, and the abandonment of the elderly."

Although it is promoted as "based on a true story", Bonev's family described the film's plot as "nonsense".