site.btaBulgarian Film Maker Adela Peeva Boycotts Film Festival in Moscow in Protest at Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

Bulgarian filmmaker Adela Peeva is not sending to Moscow her film Silence with Dignity, which was selected for the Zolotoy Vityaz (Golden Knight) International Slavonic Film Festival. Peeva made this decision in protest at Russia's invasion of Ukraine and as a gesture of empathy with the Ukrainian people, she told BTA.

"The protagonists of the film, the late film directing couple Hristo Piskov and Russian Irina Aktasheva, whose films were banned under socialism, would have approved my decision," said Peeva.

The film explores the mechanisms of censure in communist times and depicts the perseverance, the artistic survival and the silence charged with dignity. The film reveals unknown details of Bulgarian history and the relationship between the political elite and the intellectuals of that time.

The filmmaker also cites personal reasons: the Ukrainian mother of a close family member is currently living in a bomb shelter in Kharkiv and the family is worried about her safety.

Peeva graduated in filmmaking from the Academy for Theatre, Film, Radio and Television in Belgrade in 1970. She worked as a director of TV productions in former Yugoslavia. Returning to Bulgaria, she made over 50 films in the Time Documentary Films Studios, including A House on a Rock, a House on Sand (1998) and Superfluous People (1999). Her most successful film is the highly acclaimed Whose Is This Song? (2003), a coproduction between Bulgaria, Germany, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Divorce Albanian Style (2007) has had over 30 festival screenings and won 12 awards.

Her feature film debut The Neighbour (1988) was voted among the top 50 best-loved Bulgarian films. It was selected for the Women's Film Festival in Sceaux, Paris and the Madrid International Film Festival. In 1990 Adela Peeva set up her own production company, Adela Media. She has made over 30 documentaries with partners from Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Turkey and Serbia and the TV channels ZDF/ARTE, RBB/ARTE, WDR and RTBF. She is the only Bulgarian director with two European Film Academy nominations, for Whose Is This Song? and Divorce Albanian Style. In 2018, Long Live Bulgaria was the first documentary ever put to the vote for a Bulgarian nominee for the Academy Awards. In 2011, Peeva was a special guest at the Cannes Film Festival as one of 20 prominent European filmmakers invited to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the MEDIA programme.

In 2015, Peeva created the first and only website dedicated to women film directors in the Bulgarian cinema, www.jeni-bg-kino.com.

Peeva was decorated with the Order of the Balkan Range, First Class; the Order of Sts Cyril and Methodius, First Class; and the Culture Ministry's Order of Golden Age. DD