Documentary about Bulgarian film director at MoMA

[Charlotte Douglas]

              BINKA: TO TELL A STORY ABOUT SILENCE
                 a documentary about Binka Zhelyazkova,
          Bulgaria's most formidable Soviet-era film director,
                  to premiere at MoMA, NY, April 4, 5 & 7.

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The following film is the first feature production by a young 
Bulgarian producer/director, now living in New York City, who went 
home seeking to find a fore-figure and in the process confronted her 
own history. It touches on several areas that will stimulate 
discussion for students who are considering how people live and 
create within political systems and what happens when these systems 
change. It is a first-hand look at how one Eastern European woman 
film director worked during the 1950s through the 1980s, and at the 
reception of her work  today in Bulgaria.

It will be of interest to students of Women's Studies, Eastern 
European Cinema, and to those of the post-Communist diaspora for whom 
these are not old and tired questions, but part of a history that 
touches and shapes them -- and yet, because of their youth, an era 
that they did not live through personally. And for those who did live 
through these years, it is a very specific picture of Binka 
Zhelyazkova, a filmmaker of her own time who persevered within a 
system that both supported, and censored and banned her work.

The film is seeking distribution and is available for purchase as a DVD.
Screening copies will be provided to those who would like to consider 
programming, writing about or teaching with the film.

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   BINKA: TO TELL A STORY ABOUT SILENCE,  a documentary about Binka Zhelyazkova,
   Bulgaria's most formidable Soviet-era film director, to premiere at 
MoMA, NY, April 4, 5 & 7.

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                          FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

New York, NY -  Elka Nikolova's documentary film, "Binka: To Tell a 
Story about Silence" will have its U.S. premiere at the Museum of 
Modern Art (MoMA), 11 West 53rd Street, NYC, on Wednesday, April 4 at 
7:30 p.m. The film will also screen at 7:30 on Thursday, April 5, 
also with the filmmaker present for Q&A, and on Saturday, April 7 at 
2:00 p.m.     Each screening of "Binka: To Tell a Story about 
Silence" will be followed by Zhelyazkova's classic 1961 film "We Were 
Young" from MoMA's permanent film collection.

In her forty year career, Binka Zhelyazkova (b.1923) never shrank 
from controversy. She was both a stylistic pioneer and at the 
forefront of political cinema under Bulgaria's Communist 
dictatorship. Her allegorical and urban dramas examined human rights, 
artistic freedom and the legitimacy of the political system itself, 
and many of her films were banned from distribution. By intercutting 
riveting scenes from Binka's films with rare archival footage and 
candid interviews with former Bulgarian studio executives, 
colleagues, critics and film professionals, this provocative portrait 
reveals the pressures and complexities that arise when art is made 
under totalitarianism.

Filmmaker Elka Nikolova is a native of Bulgaria. In 1994, after 
completing her BA in psychology at the Kliment Ohridski University in 
Sofia, she moved to New York to study at the  New School for Social 
Research where she concentrated in film production (MA, Media Studies 
2001). Following her interests in human rights and the contribution 
of women to the arts, Nikolova began researching the life and work of 
Binka Zhelyazkova. While working in the NY film industry on films 
including "Swimfan 85," "Touched," and "Midnight Football" and 
currently at Dateline, NBC she completed the production of Binka: To 
Tell a Story About Silence.

Writer/director: Elka Nikolova, Directors of Photography: Vanyo 
Georgiev and Hristo Bakalov, b.a.c., Editor: Svetoslav Vladimirov, 
Music: Roumen Boyadjiev and Roumen Boyadjiev Jr.; Produced by 
Stanimir Trifonov; Associate producers, Dawn Jordan, Stephanie Vevers.

Binka: To Tell a Story about Silence (2006, 48 min, in Bulgarian with 
English subtitles)
We Were Young (1961, 110 min, in Bulgarian with English subtitles)

For more information about the screenings and the film please visit:
www.moma.org
www.binkadoc.com

Contact: Elka Nikolova
718.986.6136
elkanikol at yahoo.com
www.binkadoc.com

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