Talk and advice do not suffice to instill virtues

Mrs. Biolcheva, leading such an active creative life, you surely do not have much time left to look back. Nevertheless, the roots of your talent of director must be set somewhere – probably in your childhood?
Yes indeed, from an early age I started to direct children’s plays, school concerts… I dare say that my career is a fulfilled dream. It seems to me that I was given the first boost by one of my teachers of chemistry, who was exceptionally intelligent, dramatized Smirnensky, Botev… and compelled us to stage plays on our own. I studied together with the daughters of the great Bulgarian actors Vladimir Trendafilov and Zorka Yordanova. As a whole, all the kids were very artistic and keen on art.

Did your parents back you up in the choice of your future career?
My father wanted me very much to follow in his footsteps and become an engineer. He even enrolled me in the Engineering Construction Institute to study an engineering specialty, but I cried so much and stated firmly that I would not be engaged in anything that I found uninteresting. After a series of family rifts I managed to have it my way and left for Poland to study production.

What did Poland give you?
A whole lot of things. At the time Poland was open to the culture of Europe and the entire world, whereas Bulgaria suffered quite a few restrictions. Besides, the Polish Cinema Academy was the best in the former socialist countries, the Polish school was at the top of cinema achievements. Many great Polish directors like Vayda, Mounk, Vanda Yakoubovska were my lecturers and it was a matter of prestige to be in their class.

Most of your career life went in Boyana Cinema Center – from 1971 to 1992. However, you never limited yourself to a single genre. What brings you more satisfaction – the making of feature films or documentaries?
The documentary cinema is fascinating as it affords the opportunity for personal performance, for author’s subjectivity, for personal attitude to real-life facts. It is more creative and rewarding for us, the directors, since in the feature films you must, after all, consider the scriptwriter’s plot and idea. Therefore I produced one feature film per year or so and I never gave up my work in the field of documentary cinema, which I love very much. It provides insight into reality, which makes you very precise, accurate and sincere. It rules out falseness and retouching.

Which is your favourite film?
I may be slightly more attached to The Little Tiger, which set the beginning to my career in 1972 and to whose debut I devoted a lot of time and effort. I love all my films.

For over 30 years your discerning eye of a director penetrates into people’s everyday life, family relationships, national mentality… What did you uncover there and how does our reality change?
Today our life is far better, yet the Bulgarian mentality, spirit and fundamental values have not altered. And that is only natural, as these are national features that can be polished, not changed completely. The people on the Balkans have a social-cultural environment, which is typically ours and quite different from that of the Western Europeans. We are still a patriarchic society, profoundly bonded to and dependent on each other. In spite of the fact that the Bulgarian youth are already becoming citizens of the world. They travel more, study abroad, manage to adapt to their surroundings with significant achievements and great successes in Europe and the rest of the world.