Interview with Varya Shiekova

Interview with Varya Shiekova

Question : Why did you become a film director?

Varya Shiekova: It was a dream of mine since my early years. Being a post-war child, I grew up on all sorts of stages - my mother was busily involved in amateur arts activities, she used to sing very nicely, my parents used to take me to various events, included me in children’s plays, besides they were friends with a lot of actors from the Youth Theatre, who almost every night after the show used to come home. So I could follow all the plays, I went to see all their movies and secretly dreamed of someday becoming a film director. Whenever I would read a text, I would immediately imagine how I would put it into film myself, but I did not dare say this in front of my friends so everyone was amazed when I enrolled to study film directing in Germany.

My mother worked in Berlin and I auditioned secretly at all exams in the Babelsberg Film Institute. I was told that this was not how it was done, that they had agreements with Bulgaria and I had to be referred from there. But I refused to give in, stubbornly telling the rector, "Well, just try me whether I’m good at this. If I am, I will find one way or another to enroll." And then years later he told me that people thought I was slightly crazed because I very stubbornly pursued them to audition me, I kept repeating this on and on. I did not speak German at the time, I would speak to them in English, so just to order to get rid of me, they told me: "Go back to Bulgaria or Berlin - wherever you want. Learn German and in September, if you speak German, then we might think again about what to do." And when I appeared at the audition in September - with of course very poor German – they were touched and admitted me as their student, not as a Bulgarian one, because in no way could I win a place from the Ministry of Education. They enrolled me and set the condition that I must be an excellent student and show good results at the specialized subjects... And it was for the first time in my life that I showed an amazing strength of will. I learned German, went to lectures, meanwhile making my movies. Even - it sounds a bit funny now - but then the rector told me that of all Bulgarian students who had been sent there so far I was the one who most deserved to study that thing. And they kept me. During the whole time I was officially a German student, that’s how I figured in the papers, and it was actually quite difficult later to legalize my diploma here.

Nearly for a year and a half, German colleagues would hire me to work with them. I've written this also in my resume - Kulidzhanov took me because of my English, German and Russian in the movie "Karl Marx" for a year and he told me that if I stayed until the end of the movie he would give me a document that I had completed a postgraduate studies course. However, I came back because I had a child and I felt very sad without her. They returned to Bulgaria with mom and dad - their mandates expired. And I got back to Sofia because of my child and left the film "Karl Marx". Then I engaged in a two-year struggle to legalize my diploma, I was told the whole time, “But who you sent there?" or "Now you’ll have to enroll to study here." But I was already 28 years old... Finally my diploma was officially recognized as there was nothing illegal about the whole business.

Q: Do your films contain a perception of the world different from the male perspective and what is it?

V. S.: Regarding my feature film… I so much disliked this script but I was forced to do it. Already 7 or 8 directors had refused to work on it. But I was professionally in love with the head of the creative association who had this script. And I trusted him as I would trust a saint. He called me, showed me some script and told me: "The scriptwriter is very sick, he’s dying and must undergo a very serious surgery. He has written a very bad screenplay - no one wants to film it. We gave it to a director but he indulged in some sort of fantastic ideas that he would shoot in castles, and this is a story set in the countryside. And we took it from him and I want to ask you as a brother - we paid a very high fee to the screenwriter, no film is being made and now we are being pressed that he should return the money. Do make this movie, I know you will not like it and I swear the next film will be your film". Those were his words. I got the script and read it together with the camera man - because I had promised him that if I was given the chance to make a debut film, he would debut with me. We read it and we both wept – such a talent less job, it was something terrible. We went to the head of the team, "Well, we'll do it because of this person and because of what you promise us – that the next script will be ours but please allow us to repair this screenplay. It may possess certain good qualities in terms of literature, but ..." This was written during the period in which that writer was drinking like crazy, he literally drank himself to death. The head of the team agreed. We sat down to think and finally there was very little left of the original text, we cooked up something as if for children. Then the director general Nenov called for me and told me: "Did someone ever teach you how to break down a script? That’s your task here, not to write some sort of essays." I said I did not like the script. "Then there will be no debut for you also this year!" I had already waited for 10 years. After I was named to be a good assistant and second director, they were moving me here and there like crazy. The work on "Notes on Bulgarian Uprisings" consumed some 4 or 5 years of my life, then there was another movie, a Polish one, and I felt like my life was going away, I was already 36 years old, I began to doubt whether I would be able to make movies at all. You know how important it is to make things yourself and not act as subordinate to someone else. And I was there with all my German training – I was as diligent as a monkey – whatever I was taught to do, I would run around and do it.

Then the script writer came across me at the Cinema Centre one day, drunk, and said to me, "Hey, you, slut, do I correct Dostoyevsky’s writing?" He had already begun to perceive himself as some sort of a Dostoyevsky figure. And the cameraman told me , “Come on, let’s start working on it and select the shots, we have to stop wasting time with this movie, we are simply wasting our lives." So I said to the head of the creative association : "The film will not turn out good and I'll bear the brunt." "You will not, I promise you. Do make it and let’s get it over with." So there can be no talk at all of any female perception. What I have fought for was at least to make it beautiful, to show Bulgarian nature because there was no action inside. It was like trying to make a dead man look good. It's not fair now to speak in this way – I should have shown more strength of character and given up, but as I was so eager to be filming that I even imagined that I would do it and it would not turn out so bad. The only person who protected me later at the board meeting was Ivanka Grabcheva. She said, "You know very well that you first gave this script to me and I told you it’s good for nothing. If I had made this film, you might have even sent it to some festival for children's movies. But because Varya made it and no one knows her – so let’s crush her now." And they did crush me. On the day of the board meeting I had my public execution. They killed me. I can’t recall ever seeing anyone speaking so much crap in someone's face. I do not know where all this venom and hatred came from. Throughout the meeting they were drinking vodka and talking nonsense...

Q: … and what about the head of the creative association, what did he say?

V. S.: He didn’t come to the board meeting. He apologized to me and said he was afraid. From this council I was taken straight to hospital and for 20 days I was somewhere on the verge between life and death because I saw that they killed me as a film director. Then the political changes took place and that was it. I made a documentary about the town of Strajitsa, the earthquake there, which turned out to be very good. They sent me to do a documentary about socialist construction in Strajitsa. But then we were hit by the earthquake and we were shooting in this period. This was my lucky chance. We had arrived in Veliko Tarnovo and in the middle of the night I was jostled out of bed and fell to the ground. Vyacheslav Anev was the cameraman. And I remember the stillness and in this silence, a guy named Stoykata, an assistant cameraman, said from the neighboring room - "Now we will see how a film director is running naked down the hallway." But I didn’t give them this opportunity to make fun of me – I got dressed and went out. The film turned out very nice. A colleague director whom I knew from Leipzig saw it by accident; I used to be all the time attached to him as translator. He saw the film and said, "This film has to come now to the festival in Leningrad, I want it at the festival." His name was Mikhail Litvyakov and he was the head of the documentary cinema unit in Leningrad. And what do you think happened next?

Q: The film was not sent?

V. S.: Yes. They said the film got lost. When they received a request from Leningrad...

Q: Which year was this?

V. S.: When was the earthquake? Wasn’t it in 1979 or perhaps 1980…?

Q: And there is no copy of this movie?

V. S.: They say there isn’t. We were looking for it so hard at the time, he kept ringing every day, asking what was going on and saying he was waiting for the film. And I was told that the person who was supposed to send it made some mistake and mistakenly sent it to Strajitsa. I said to them, “But how come, it is expected in Leningrad and you send it to Strajitsa." From Strajitsa they said that when the governments and systems changed, they had no idea where the copy of the film was placed. This is my presence in the world of cinema, so I really don’t know what to tell you about the female perception. What matters is that the movie should be aesthetically pleasing, meet my own criteria for good filmmaking. If this could be called a female perspective... I've always tried to bring aesthetics inside, to bring more poetry, to make things beautiful – I was looking for the most beautiful places that can be shot in the most beautiful way. If that’s a female trait... But I guess men would do it in the same way…

Q: Would you say that directing is mostly a male profession and have you faced such opinions?

V. S. : Film directing is perhaps to some extent a male profession because it requires purely physical strength. It requires being tough, uncompromising, even a bit insensitive for certain things in order to fulfill your tasks. Few women have such strong traits of character. But on the other hand, when a female director is talented and knows what she wants to do, she can stand head and shoulders above men. I do not believe in "male" and "female" professions - everything is a matter of will and talent.

Q: Have you been forced to make sacrifices as a wife and mother? Was it worth it?

V. S. : Yes. I could not at all be an active part of my child’s growing up. During the work on "Notes on Bulgarian Uprisings" there were periods when we were shooting for 6-7 months in Koprivshtitsa, Plovdiv, elsewhere. I used to go home and straight to bed and would see my child only while sleeping. Now I realize that this was pointless, maybe I had to stop and devote myself to my child because I feel that now when we are both grown-up women many things are not clear between us, we are just beginning to clarify them. And whenever I make some remark about anything I might not like, she answers, " You should have told this to me when I was little, not now."

Q: Have you ever had professional difficulties as a female film director?

V. S. : First, you always run against distrust. Then the men on the crew always seek an opportunity to act in a patronizing manner with you and you need to prove to them for every little thing that perhaps you know it even better than them. Yes, I have come across difficulties. But again – it’s a question of character, strength of character. It might feel paternal when it is done with good intentions. But sometimes it is entirely driven by malicious intent.

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