What are the films or people that had impacts on you and deeply inspired you to become a filmmaker?

Speaking of feature films, the movies that first come to mind are "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" of Milos Forman and

"Knife in the Head" – a movie by a German director Reinhard Hauff (with Bruno Gantz).

Then "The Cold Summer of the 53rd" a Russian movie. I will open a bracket here Bulgaria is a small country, too far from America.

The people in your country, quite logically, may have wrong impressions about my country. I was not born in the 1950s, but in the 1970s and 1980s, we were in no way deprived of the best in world cinema. From that period I like French cinema a lot, I grew up with it.

I also remember well a Soviet documentary - the Supreme Court. It shows the story of a man who commited a murder and sentenced to death.

The film was built by conversations with him during the process and until his execution.

It was an "unpretentious" movie, probably on a modest budget, but half a minute after the end of the inscriptions and the lights on, none of the spectators had gone out of the theater. I would like to make such films.

Your film was an Award Winning Documentary film in the

"American Golden Picture International Film Festival".


What were some of the challenges you faced in making this film?

You know, it's hard for me to imagine what it is like to be a pro, working in some big media and being sent to make a movie

on a topic for a certain period of time. I have been to the Donetsk People's Republic /a former part of Ukraine/ six times,

before that more than six times in Ukraine, each time for more than a week. It took me a long time and it cost me a lot of money (personal).

But now I can say that I stand behind every word of the people who speak in my film.

And one very serious problem - those people who live in the war zone have been lied too many times.

Many journalists came to talk with them, filmed them, and when they returned to their countries, they published

some “on-demand” things that had nothing to do with the truth. This is very demotivating.

You cannot expect any enthusiasm and assistance, and without the help of the right people, you are just on the street alone.

It takes a long time to make the right contacts, to gain trust. I still wouldn't say that I have earned completely their trust.

I found it extremely difficult to receive any archive footage for more expressiveness for the film.

For you what was the biggest lesson you had to learn?

Well ... it's too early for lessons, they are just starting. This is my first movie. So far, all I have learned is that if you save money from technical resourses, it won’t lead to a positive result.