The actress is in Italy for the festival of Bulgarian cinema
Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova follows the tradition of coming to Italy every year at this time. And if the previous times she did this to shoot in Venice and Rome in American films (“Elektra”, “Honeymoon”), this time she came to meet the audience at the 16th edition of the Bulgarian cinema festival .
“I adore the Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, there is no other like him. I also really like the directors of the series “The Genial Girlfriend” (Saverio Costanzo, Daniele Lucchetti – note author)”, adds the actress nominated for the Oscar in 2021 to the channel “24 Chasa”. For now, working with Italian directors is a dream for the future. However, he came to his current professional reality – English-language films, passing through his passion for Danish cinema, for Lars von Trier and for the direction “Dogma 95”. He fell in love with two Danish films – “A Royal Affair” and “The Hunt”, which he watched at the “Sofia Film Fest”.
“I knew nothing about Denmark except Hamlet and that there was something rotten there. I started researching what was going on in Copenhagen. I became passionate about this strange avant-garde movement “Dogma 95″, in which the artists do not show an ego, but a realistic situation. Sometimes the camera is under the table, you only see people’s footsteps, but that sharpens your sensations to the maximum”, Maria tells the audience about the distant 2012. Denmark becomes her “obsession”. When he was in the fourth year of NATFIZ, he bought plane tickets to Denmark for himself and his parents with money from various fees.
“I had researched exactly where the production company Zentropa, founded by Von Trier and Peter Jensen, was located. I went there – it was November, rain. I went in bold and crazy, looking for someone to tell that I was ready to do anything, even without pay – to clean the offices or collect the files, just to be there. Fortunately, I met Jensen who was coming to the studio. They told me – yes, of course, it is possible, as long as you learn Danish. My mother collapsed because Denmark is 3 hours by plane from Bulgaria. I made a decision that one day I will get there”, says the 26-year-old from Burgas. Later, however, America appears on the horizon. Although she has already filmed many US productions, she always prepares for her work on the script with “paper” in hand.
“The first thing I do is print everything because I like to open it on paper, even though I have an iPad and a laptop. It’s best if I can then sit down with the writer and the director to think about the biography of the character, the visible and invisible details that make up the character. My first screen partner in the States, Sacha Baron Cohen, taught me something very concrete and physical – how the character walks, whether he is hunched over or standing, whether he is looking up or down, what his gait is. I noticed that I have already started using it. I also try to create a playlist of each character – what music they listen to, because music is a person’s soul world. Aggressive, jazz, classical, trap? When you step on the field, everything takes a completely different direction, but the preparation is important because it at least gives you the opportunity to have two game options, if not more. I try to give different variations because even with the most amazing directors to work with and the most brilliant script to have, the editor plays a huge role in what ends up. “I used to learn lines the day before the shooting,” Bakalova also says.
