Art as a Virus
The first interview from the new series FemGems in the Arts, featuring film director Simona Kostova
The world premiere of DREISSIG was held at the International Rotterdam Film Festival in the Bright Future competition program in January 2019. One month later — the film was shown at Berlinale in the prestigious program Perspektive Deutsches Kino and the German site Filmstarts defined it as the best film in that section.
DREISSIG, a feature film by Simona Kostova, tells a story of a group of Berlin hipsters in their 30’s, living in an impenetrable existential vacuum. The daily grind of Raha, Paskal, Hener, Ovunc, Kara and Anya wobbles on the borderline between depression and euphoria. They long for something that will change their entire lives, but their lethargic existence is accompanied by drabness and inexplicable sorrow. The much needed change is always snoozed like a morning alarm.
Simona Kostova is also in her 30’s. She came to Sofia from her hometown Burgas to study Acting in the class led by the famous Bulgarian actress Snezhina Petrova. Reared with the love for Chekov and striving for “something else and something more”, she decided to move to Berlin to study Film directing in Deutsche Film — und Fernsehakademiе. Berlin became an important part of her films and her life.
You were first a theatre actress and then you switched to film directing. What made you choose a career in the arts?
It is funny, but I chose a career in art to avoid one as a lawyer.
My father wanted me to study law, he is a lawyer himself and he firmly believed I had big potential for that. I couldn’t imagine it at all, I was very much interested in literature, painting… I adored theater. At that time, I visited a friend studying at New Bulgarian University in Sofia and I saw a note hanging on the wall there. It was informing about an entrance exam for acting taking place in three months. I prepared myself without telling anyone about my decision. I applied and it worked out. My father was so angry and disappointed, but at the end I think his desire and my choice aren’t so far away from each other.
After all, both have something to do with dealing with human conflicts and searching for the truth. Just that being an artist allows you to simultaneously defend both sides of the conflict.
What does it take to create something really deep and brave which speaks with a strong and unique voice in cinema?
I think it needs, most of all, artistic freedom and space for risk. I have the feeling that nowadays you have to be able to write a complete script which gives answers to all possible questions, like for example what kind of movie it is going to be. Either you make it, or you don’t get money, because it looks too risky. For me, that model kills all of the opportunities and possibilities. I suppose this is the reason why every second movie looks the same and works in the same way. There are a lot of creative filmmakers, but unfortunately there aren’t so many creative supporters.
Do you feel like you have found your own voice already?
I am convinced that every new project requires finding a new voice. The fact you once found something, doesn’t mean it would work out for the next project. For me, it is somehow a never ending searching.
How do you start your creative process? With a basic idea of the plot, with a vision of a specific character, with a strong visual reference or with a particular feeling that should be present in the film?
Mostly, it starts with an emotion and an idea of a person experiencing this particular emotion.
How do you compose all of the future film’s elements in your head? What are the steps that you follow and how do you manage to motivate and involve your team to work on this vision?
I cast my actors at a very early stage, mostly without even having a script, when everything is still just an idea of a feeling that I want to explore. After having the actors,
the process looks very much like the work of a laboratory technician — I’m “infecting” them with a particular “virus/emotion” and then I observe their behavior, which helps me understand some particular things.
That helps me writing key scenes. Having the key scenes figured out gives me the order of the dramaturgy which leads me to some “transition” scenes and so on. I continue rehearsing the written scenes with the actors and at a certain point I start filming them with a camera. This is the moment when the vision is born, for me that happens at the very end of the rehearsing process. Concerning the motivation — I think every person who is taking part in that process is also searching for some answers on the same topic. So it all happens very naturally. It is not only me working on something and everybody else working for me. We create something together that matters a lot to all of us.
Is it necessary for you to have a very personal urge behind every project? What was that particular feeling that inspired you to make DREISSIG?
I mostly start working on topics which worry me. It could be something that I’m feeling or something someone else is feeling.
With DREISSIG it was a certain stage of life that not only me, but also everyone else around me were stuck in. It was the feeling of inexplicable sadness, isolation and emptiness.
How do you describe your characters and what do you feel about them? What could “heal” them? What could bring them out of this state of emptiness?
For me, they are great people, wonderful personalities. I feel sympathy and understanding for them. Regarding the “healing”, I don’t think I was looking for that while making the film.That’s life and we cannot heal us from it, we could only continue living and try to find a way to live with our inner lacks. But still — they have each other. No one of them went home, nobody left the group, they stayed together, in an awful condition, yes, but together.
And luckily we have not only our broken hearts and souls, but also our bodies. The body gets hungry and you have to take care of it. Chewing saves lives. This is my personal picture of hope that I found through this movie.
Do other artworks inspire your creativity? In the case of DREISSIG you seem to be influenced by Anton P. Chekov.
Yes, I spend a long time reading and thinking about Chekov’s plays, especially Three sisters. For me it was clear I am searching for the same particular feeling that I was experiencing while reading this text. At the very beginning of an idea this helps a lot. There are also a lot of very interesting elements in that play, that have a lot to do with what I was trying to do. First of all the idea of a network of relationships between a group of characters, seen as the main protagonist. Also the element of passing time as one of the main causes for the suffering of those protagonists. Or the idea that the modern human is no longer feeling able to affect the world with his or her actions. The world keeps spinning, regardless of whether you are there or not. And of course, Chekov provides a picture of a person with such exact, unbelievably deep parameters and at the same time he manages to stay a fascinating humanist and this is something I admire so much.
How did you manage to convince the Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademiе management to give you the freedom to make a feature film in the fourth year of your educational program? Tell us more about the collective of directors/producers that you’ve created.
At that time the DFFB was going through a transitional period, there was no director and also no leading teacher for directing. The director of studies, Bodo Knapheide, was the one with whom we had to speak about the scripts and production of the movies. Bodo sees the academy as a place to try things out, to risk, to explore. He is someone who will deal very responsibly and at the same time he will still give you freedom and room to risk. I was in the middle of the rehearsing process and already had written the day part of the script, but there was no student producer who would be interested in working on that film. I was experimenting a lot during my education and during that time I was never interested in finishing something for sending it to a festival, so I suppose this was also a huge holdback for student producers, it was a complicated project with too much risk. So I asked Ceylan, a student director with whom I already had had a strong working relationship. I asked him if he could imagine producing my movie and directly after that I would produce his. Of course, for us this was a very fascinating idea. We made a plan and presented it to Bodo and to all the executive producers of the DFFB. Some of them found it to be too risky. We have never produced a film like that, production students are studying four years long to be allowed to take care of an IF film. But still, Bodo found it to be a good idea. He somehow saw us being so excited about it and gave it a chance. And of course, there was Andreas Louis, one of the executive producers of the DFFB, who said he could imagine maintaining our projects. At the end, he is the one who took huge responsibility, for him it meant like three times more work than in a project with a production student inside. I am so grateful to both of them for being such an amazing support. Regarding the length of DREISSIG we shot it in 8 days and if you manage to shoot your material in the time that DFFB is giving you, no one will tell you afterwards you have to make a short film out of it.
What are the professional challenges that you often face in your work?
The greatest challenge for now is to manage to work for money and work for a film in the course of 24 hours. This is something very exhausting.
Which of your qualities serve you the best and what are the weaknesses that you are trying to overcome?
I suppose my ability to madly believe in things is one good quality that helps me very much as a filmmaker.
The huge power of believing in something makes you very fearless. I could go through walls for something or someone I believe in.
Unfortunately, this is also a huge weakness. Too much believing goes always together with a lot of disappointments.
How are you dealing with hesitations, insecurity and fears?
I think fear often has two faces. One, that you have to fight against and one, that you better listen to. I do my best to be able to recognize with which face I am dealing with and then, I follow my instincts.
What can motivate you and what can disappoint you?
I like to work together with people. People can be very motivating and also very disappointing. Maybe that’s why I love them so much, it never gets boring.
Have you faced prejudices in your working field? Aren’t you afraid of being boxed at some point as a (female) director, who approaches storytelling from a female point of view?
I’m not at all afraid of that. To be honest, I don’t have the feeling of approaching storytelling from a perspective that has anything to do with a gender. For me, there is just the human perspective and I believe every human being is different from another, because we all grow up in different constellations which make us diverse personalities. I grew up in a family of two very strong personalities, between my father and my mother there has never been any gender difference in the stereotypic sense, so I suppose they raised me with the idea of being a humanist, much more than being a feminist. Of course, I am aware of the reality we live in and the way women are still treated in a completely different way than men. I suppose, I believe that
if you find so many closed doors on your way, just because of the fact that you are a woman, or because of something else, than you should invent new ways, build new doors and this is what I believe women are doing nowadays. In that sense — I am with them, doing the same.
What do you think of the general situation of women in the film industry today?
I think things that need to change are slowly changing. And this is great.
What was the most important step during your professional path so far and what was your biggest mistake or delusion?
The most important step was for sure changing the city I live in from Sofia to Berlin and of course applying the DFFB. Regarding the biggest mistake — that’s
the good thing about mistakes — time goes by and it always somehow turns out that these weren’t mistakes, but just other very important steps that happened for a reason.
What is up-coming for you in the near future?
I’m now starting to work on my graduation film and I’m very excited and curious about the direction it will lead me.
- Three Sisters is a play by the Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov. It was written in 1900 and first performed in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theater.
This interview/portray is the first one of the brand new FemGems in the Arts, part of FemGems and it’s being created in partnership with Blok Kino and Kino Magazine Bulgaria.
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