Asia Mon Amour
The ninth interview of the FemGems in the Arts series features the film critic Andronika Màrtonova
Andronika Màrtonova was born in Marianske Lazne, Czech Republic, but she lives in Sofia, Bulgaria. She is a prominent film critic, associate professor, scholar and the best Bulgarian expert in Asian cinema. Andronika is a Head of Screen Arts Department in the Institute for Art Studies (Bulgarian Academy of Science) and a lecturer in the National Academy for Theater and Film Arts “Krastyo Sarafov”, Sofia University and New Bulgarian University. She is a member of NETPAC — The Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema and a member of the international film critics’ organization FIPRESCI. In the last fifteen years, she has been a member and a chairman of numerous national and international film festival juries and project selection committees.
She has worked as a writer/editor for Manager Magazine and the newspapers Capitel and Pari. As a freelance journalist, Andronika contributes to L’Еuropeo, Artizanin and Kino magazines as well as many other printed and online outlets like Glasove. Her journalistic experience includes working as a reporter and a presenter in the Bulgarian National Radio, Jazz FM, RFI and TV7. She was twice nominated for best film critic (2015, 2016) and won the special merit award given by the Ikuo Hirayama Centre (part of Silk Road — Ikuo Hirayama Museum, Japan), the Japanese Embassy in Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (2011) and the award for best theoretical book by the Union of Bulgarian Filmmakers (2008). Amongst her other awards are the Bulgarian Academy of Science award for young scientists (2009) and the award for PhD students by the Union of Bulgarian scientists (2007).
In this interview, get to know Andronika’s roots and motivations that led to such a pioneering artistic career. Find out why she’s acknowledged internationally despite the controversial role of film-critics in her home country.
What made you pursue a career in the Arts? How did you decide to become a film critic?
This decision was somehow genetically predisposed. My mother is a theater music composer and my father is a set designer. I literally grew up at theater repetitions and recordings in music studios. I was a very artistic kid. I did a lot of drawing; I wrote and illustrated books; I was dancing actively; I played parts in two stage musicals and I even had appearances in a few films. The only thing I was extremely bad at was singing and playing piano. During a particular moment in high school, I was so fed up with theater, that I didn’t want to hear about arts anymore.
I had been deeply drawn by Asia since I was a child. And by cinema, of course, as long as I didn’t have to be on set, because back then the endless waiting was very irritating to me. Ironically, I have to admit that now I would go on a movie set with great pleasure.
In high school I had wonderful teachers, especially in literature, philosophy and psychology. They have encouraged me to think out-of-the-box and tried to embolden my writing skills. At the age of 19, I was divided in my mind as to what my future profession should be. Although I decided to apply for Medicine and got accepted, I gave it up. After a while, I set out on a new path— it was Film Studies and Dramaturgy in NATFA.
How has your professional artistic taste developed over time? Who were the important directors, authors and ideas for you?
My taste was initially shaped by my parents. The classic film authors have always been my guiding stars — Kurosawa, Fellini, Antonioni, Chaplin, Scorsese, Bob Fosse, Danelia, Forman, Kavalerovich…
My parents had never stopped me from watching something which might not be appropriate for kids, or that might have erotic or violent scenes. They were always explaining everything to me, all of the elements of the movie: we would analyze the meaning, particular scenes, the plot, the visual decisions, the music, the actors…
I have always enjoyed reading. Vonnegut was a decisive factor in forming my willingness to write and to work in the field of criticism, as were Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen and Tennessee Williams. I adored reading plays. We had an enormous collection at home — my mother has worked on most of them in the theater.
I liked Scott Fitzgerald and even Steven King. They were my high school idols. I was also attracted by some Japanese authors, whose books were already translated in Bulgarian by this time (somewhere in the 1990s) like Yukio Mishima, Kōbō Abe, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki. Тhanks to my father, I loved albums about costumes, decorative art, architecture, and ancient civilizations.
So I can say now that medicine was a misplaced attempt for a rebellious escape, a pure nonsense.
What fascinated you in Asian cinema and culture? How did you decide to delve deep into that specific matter and for how long did you examine it?
I don’t have an exact rational answer. My attraction to Asia is entirely emotional. Asian cinema is my fictional world, I love how it tells stories in a meditative, deep, delicate, beautiful, aesthetic way.
When I started studying in the academy, from the very beginning, I already knew that my final thesis would be on Japanese cinema. And that indeed happened under the tutorship of Prof. Vera Naydenova. She taught me everything about the profession. It’s to her that I owe what I now recognize as my main strength in academic writing — the specific interdisciplinary, cross-curricular approach.
We did a lot of writing during those five years in the Academy and we were lucky to have great teachers. They gave us a lot and I’m grateful to all of them. Our study was not an easy one, with a huge scope of knowledge to be covered. They made great experts out of us, and not only in film history and theory, but also in arts and culture.
People think that film criticism is a super easy job. The presentations at screenings and film journalism are more visible to the audience, unlike film theory and the work of the film scholars. Nobody understands the amount of time and effort that film scholars invest in their work. You need to work constantly. It’s a lifetime knowledge and experience. No, we do not stop our professional growth after we graduate from the Academy.
Later on, my interest in Asian Cinema expanded from East to West — from Japan to China, India, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Bhutan.
I was encouraged to broaden my horizons by the scientific adviser on my Ph.D thesis Prof. Alexander Yanakiev. Also, Prof. Vladimir Ignatovski, to whom I was an assistant in NATFA for a while, had an important role in my growth. Later-on the Korean and Tibetan expert Prof. Alexander Fedotov got into my life-time list of special teachers. I attended his extraordinary lectures while I was doing my Ph.D. I was so fascinated that I was literally writing down every word he was saying. Unfortunately, both Yanakiev and Fedotov are not with us anymore. I miss them a lot and I even have had dreams of them being together and laughing.
After my Ph.D. I obtained my second Master’s degree from the Center for Eastern Languages and Studies at Sofia University. Despite the fact that I was attending Korean Studies, I preferred not to work again on a thesis about Korean Cinema so
I chose India and Indian cinema (which incidententally is not only Bollywood at all). In my thesis, I’ve also traced back their specific theatrical tradition. It was a magnificent journey.
I’m very grateful to Assoc. Prof.Galina Sokolova and Prof. Milena Bratoeva who have both led me down that path, which was absolutely unfamiliar for me back then. I had some wonderful and very inspiring colleagues at the Center. We have had joint publications and projects together with some of them. I feel at home there. Maybe it’s because of the specifics of the cinematic field that I work on.
You are a lecturer at the National Film and Theater Academy in Sofia, Sofia University and New Bulgarian University. What classes do you teach?
I teach various courses that are somehow connected, despite having different subjects. In NATFA, I teach History of Asian cinema. I started this discipline as a pioneer because before me there hadn’t been a specialized course in that area in the Academy. In Sofia University I teach Visual Culture of East Asia and Theatrical Traditions of Asia to Bachelors, as well as “South, East and Southeastern Asia in the light of documentary cinema” and “Indian and Iranian visual culture” to Master Degree Students. Sometimes I also teach the course “The Korean new wave Hallyu and the World” — we share this one together with my Koreanist colleagues from the faculty. At New Bulgarian University I teach “Audiovisual creativity”.
What does teaching give you? How do you motivate young people to dig deeper into artistic subjects?
Teaching university students is very demanding. It requires a lot of preparation and you have to share with the students your knowledge, your current researches, etc. It’s inspiring, but it takes a lot of time and energy. I’m not sure how I manage to motivate my students — maybe with my friendly, positive and well-intentioned attitude. But I can be very strict, exacting and demanding. I’m trying to bring out their best, if they let me, of course.
I learn from my students. They sometimes amaze me with their interests and choices. It’s a great adventure to lead them deep into the specifics of academic writing. I’m trying to show them the pleasure of thinking and analyzing,(re)searching and making new discoveries.
You have a lot of different professional activities — you’re the Head of the Screen arts department in the Institute for Art Studies. You teach, you write for several prestigious outlets and you participate in festival juries and film projects selection committees, etc. Where do you feel the most challenged and intrigued?
The Institute for Art Studies of the Bulgarian Academy of Science is a great place for professional growth. I love my colleagues — they are literally like a second family to me. I wouldn’t have become what I am now without their help.
To have a constructive dialog and support, to share directions and guidelines is something of huge importance for every scholar.
I have great respect for their opinion and I’m always asking for it. We are blessed to work in a friendly atmosphere.
The biggest challenge for me is to work with archives and to scrutinize the dialogue between different past cultures in the past. This applies especially to Bulgarian culture and arts before 1944. It’s really hard work, but it’s great.
I enjoy being a member of film festivals juries. My last participation in a festival jury was in Vladivostok at the prestigious forum “Meridiani on the Pacific ocean” in 2019.
In Bulgaria it’s not very popular to be a scholar, especially in the very exotic field of Asian cinema, that’s why for me, it is super important to meet colleagues from all around the world. It’s wonderful when you realize that you are academically matched and that you all share the same interests.
It was a huge recognition for me to be invited to Central Asia’s Academy of Arts in Almaty, Kazakhstan to make a Master Class on Asian cinema from the silent era. I discovered that outside of Bulgaria I’m much more respected and my work is well-appreciated.
Do you always find enough freedom to display your creativity?
I adore curating film programs and selecting films. In Bulgaria, film critics are rarely entrusted for this job, because most people think that everybody can do it. Incompetent and unqualified people give their opinion and are authorized to make crucial decisions. But when you are doing that kind of work, you would never have unlimited freedom, because you always depend on institutions — cultural, political, etc.
Actually it seems that film critics in Bulgaria are facing a lot of difficulties in terms of freely expressing their creativity.
The printed issues are perishing one after another (The newspaper “Kultura and its successor, “K” and Artizanin Magazine no longer exist).
30 years proved to be enough for film journalism to be destroyed — columns in newspapers were removed; outlets were closed down. Once I was asked by the editor-in-chief of a newspaper: “Why should business be interested in that? Who cares about films, theater, music, and exhibitions?” I said, OK, the get ready to welcome ignorance and banality.
The film critic cultivates taste, sets criteria, educates new audiences, encourages cultural dialogues, opens new horizons, takes care of the public reception of the film process. If you stop the voice of the critics, you will eventually raise a crowd of primitives.
In this situation, many pen-drivers are exercising in the field of film journalism without having any theoretical or historical background. When they have access to the media they become even more dangerous. There is no real film criticism. OK. Enjoy that.
That’s how we encourage mediocrity. We are castrating imagination and curiosity. We are making our language poorer.
Many years ago I was asked: “Why are you wasting your time with that Asian cinema. Isn’t it only Jackie Chan and “Elephants Are My Companions”? Now everybody is very surprised by the success of the film “Parasite” and the triumph of Korean cinema. This is something that I’ve been talking and writing about for fifteen years!
In 2005, when we, a group of Bulgarian academics, won a grant from the Korean National Film Center, nobody even noticed. We wrote a project and won in Seoul. We did a conference, we published a corpus with research studies and discussed at an academic level with Korean students the projections of the traditional and the contemporary in the films of Kim Ki-duk, Lee Chang-dong, Im Kwon-taek, Bong Joon-Ho… Our work has been cited in Korea; our papers and essays have become a part of the official university courses. Very few people know about that in Bulgaria. Unfortunately, that ignorant and cynical attitude is very destructive for the audience, for the authors, and for us.
Apart from all that, we can still choose the subjects that we would like to work on. The problem is that our work needs to reach the audience.
What’s important for you in the arts?
Art should touch your soul and obsess you. It should provoke emotions and thoughts. Sometimes it can make you silent. Art could even change you. It helps you discover new galaxies.
Which are your all-time favorite films and why do you love them?
This is a really difficult question. It would be a long list, but
if I have to say just one title of a film it would be The Circus by Chaplin. Especially the last scene with the empty arena. It’s an amazing metaphor of how lonely and desolate we are without art.
What do you think about contemporary cinema? Does it mostly follow successful models, or are there still distinctive authors who dare to create films which are brave and unique?
“The Joker” could be a great role model for contemporary cinema, because it combines the commercial and the artistic approach. And it seems that nowadays those two are quite distant from each other.
What is sad is that unlike the XX century with its avanguard, expressionism, neorealism, French new wave, etc. the new century hasn’t come up yet with new artistic trends and tendencies. Contemporary cinema lacks brave authors that search for new artistic styles and forms which will have a long-term influence on film language and will remain in the history of art.
We are recycling the same models over and over again. It feels like we live in a remake of something and we think that there was nothing on this Earth before we were born.
The film industry today wants to be liked by the mass audience, that’s why the producers and the producing companies have very mediocre criteria for the content. There is no acute need for telling something new to the world. Art for art’s sake is long gone. Unfortunately, it feels that we’ve already seen it all.
What are the latest trends in the new Bulgarian films and do they stand out in international context? Which are the films that should be highlighted, in your opinion, and why?
There has been a great positive change in Bulgarian cinema in the last ten years. It has become deeper, more intriguing, authentic, humane and sincere. The authors have a new vision of how a contemporary film should look like.
My favorite film is “Aga” by Milko Lazarov — this is the film that I’ve been waiting for for decades. I like the writers/directors duo Petar Valchanov and Kristina Grozeva — especially their most recent film “The Father”. We have a very strong female directors wave: Maya Vitkova (“Viktoria”), Svetla Tsotsorkova (“Thirst” and “Sister”), Nadejda Kosseva (“Irina”), Mina Mileva and Vessela Kazakova (“Cat in the wall”) . “Rounds” by Stephan Komandarev is great; Marian Valev’s first feature “Bad girl” is good (with some minor problems). What’s important is that our cinema is headed in the right direction.
We see new actors on the big screen — Martina Apostolova, who recently was awarded the European Shooting star prize at the Berlinale 2020 — for example. Her success is well-deserved.
The last documentary film that I liked was “My Darling Son” by Pavlina Ivanova. I like the duo Assya Kovanova and Andrey Kulev, who work in the field of animation film.
The new Bulgarian cinema has a decent place on the European film map. We have many young talents in fiction, documentary and animation (they are working in all kinds of formats: shorts, middle-length, and feature).
Do you think that an artistic profession demands that you really love your job and that you devote yourself to it entirely?
I’m convinced that an artistic profession demands a deep love and devotion to your job. But sometimes you also need an escape. To recharge your batteries and to refresh your senses. I find that kind of escape in dance and good literature.
This portrait is the 9th one of the FemGems in the Arts series, proudly part of FemGems, whose mission is to boost female entrepreneurship.
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