Stephan Komandarev | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | Bulgarian |
Years active | 1990s–present |
Stephan Komandarev (born September 28, 1966) is a Bulgarian film director, producer and screenwriter. [1] His films have been selected on three occasions as Bulgaria's submission to the Academy Awards for the Best International Feature Film competition. [2]
Blaga's Lessons won Best Film at Bulgaria’s Golden Rose Film Festival and entered the main competition at the 2023 CinEast film festival. [3] The film also fetched Silver Peacock-Best Director at the 54th International Film Festival of India. [4]
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is a film festival held annually in July in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. The Karlovy Vary Festival is one of the oldest in the world and has become Central and Eastern Europe's leading film event.
The Cairo International Film Festival is an annual internationally accredited film festival held in Cairo Opera House. It was established in 1976 and has taken place every year since its inception, except for 2011 and 2013, when it was cancelled due to budget limitations and political instability. It is the only international competitive feature film festival recognized by the FIAPF in the Arab world and Africa, as well as the oldest in this category.
The Queer Lion is the trophy awarded yearly since 2007 to the “Best Movie with LGBT Themes & Queer Culture” among those presented during the Venice International Film Festival.
CinEast or Central and Eastern European Film Festival is an annual non-profit film festival held at various venues around Luxembourg in October.
Ivan Barnev is a Bulgarian actor. He is best known for his performance as Jan Dítě in I Served the King of England (2006), as well as his frequent collaborations with filmmakers Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov in films such as The Lesson (2014), The Father (2019) and Triumph.
11 Minutes is a 2015 Polish-Irish thriller film written and directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. It stars Richard Dormer, Paulina Chapko, Wojciech Mecwaldowski, Andrzej Chyra, Dawid Ogrodnik, Agata Buzek, Piotr Glowacki, Mateusz Kościukiewicz, Ifi Ude, Jan Nowicki, Anna Maria Buczek, and Lukasz Sikora. Set in Warsaw, it tells the story of multiple people's lives over the course of eleven minutes in a single day. The film had its world premiere in the Competition section at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival on 9 September 2015. It was selected as the Polish entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 88th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.
The Judgment is a 2014 Bulgarian drama film directed by Stephan Komandarev. It was selected as the Bulgarian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards but it was not nominated.
Glory is a 2016 Bulgarian drama film written and directed by Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov. The second film in the directors' "newspaper-clippings trilogy", the film is a social-realist parable exploring the themes of corruption, class differences, and the rural-urban divide, in contemporary Bulgarian society. It was selected as the Bulgarian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.
Stockfish Film Festival is an international film festival in Reykjavík, Iceland. The festival takes place in the only art house cinema in Iceland, Bíó Paradís, late February every year and lasts for eleven days. The festival aims to create a platform in Reykjavík to encourage collaboration between domestic and international film communities.
Directions is a 2017 Bulgarian drama film directed by Stephan Komandarev. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.
Donbass is a 2018 internationally co-produced black comedy war film directed by Sergei Loznitsa. It was selected as the opening film in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. At Cannes, Loznitsa won the Un Certain Regard award for Best Director, as well as the Silver Pyramid at the 40th Cairo International Film Festival. It was selected as the Ukrainian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. It was filmed in Kryvyi Rih, 300 km west of separatist-occupied Donetsk. At the 49th International Film Festival of India it received the Main Prize - Golden Peacock for Best Feature Film.
Corpus Christi is a 2019 drama film directed by Jan Komasa and written by Mateusz Pacewicz. An international co-production between Poland and France, the film stars Bartosz Bielenia, Aleksandra Konieczna, Eliza Rycembel, Tomasz Ziętek, Leszek Lichota, and Łukasz Simlat. Inspired by real-life events, it follows a 20-year-old man who experiences a spiritual transformation while living in a youth detention center.
R.M.N. is a 2022 drama film written and directed by Cristian Mungiu. Set in a multiethnic village in Transylvania, Romania, during the 2019–20 holiday season, the film follows a man who returns from Germany and his ex-lover who works in the village. Mungiu named the film after a Romanian acronym for nuclear magnetic resonance, as the film is "an investigation of the brain, a brain scan trying to detect things below the surface". The film is based on the 2020 Ditrău xenophobic incident.
The Kings of the World is a 2022 internationally co-produced drama road movie directed by Laura Mora Ortega. Set in Medellín, the drama is about five teenage friends who live on the streets. As a result, they leave a Colombian city to start over in the countryside. The film premiered in September 2022 at the 70th San Sebastián International Film Festival where it won the Golden Shell for Best Picture.
The 36th European Film Awards, presented by the European Film Academy to recognize achievements in European filmmaking, took place at Arena Berlin in Berlin on 9 December 2023. It was the twenty-second time that the awards ceremony took place in Germany.
The 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival took place from 30 June to July 8, 2023, in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic.
Blaga's Lessons is a 2023 drama film directed and produced by Stephan Komandarev, who co-wrote it with Simeon Ventsislavov. The film stars Eli Skorcheva as Blaga, a retired schoolteacher in Shumen, who is grieving the recent death of her husband and falls victim to a criminal scam while trying to raise the money to pay for his gravestone.
The 54th International Film Festival of India opened on 20 November 2023 with Catching Dust by Stuart Gatt in Goa. Shekhar Kapur an Indian filmmaker served as chairperson of the international jury. This year a new award category Best Web Series Award was introduced in the festival. 32 entries in 10 languages from 15 Over-the-top media service platforms were selected to compete for this award.