40, MARIA LUISA BOULEVARD

Director: Kristina Spassovska

Producer: Maya Vitkova-Kosev

Production company: Viktoria Films

Country: Bulgaria

Sofia, a 36-year-old Bulgarian, returns to her childhood home for her father’s funeral, where ghostly events start unraveling the missing pieces of her life.

Synopsis:

After years of living abroad, Sofia returns to Bulgaria for her father’s funeral. The two of them have not spoken ever since the mysterious disappearance of Sofia’s brother, which subsequently led to her departure. While settling the affairs of the deceased one, Sofia experiences a number of supernatural situations - her father’s ghost appears, all his clothes vanish and strange animals show up in weird places… All this, along with the administrative delays, urges Sofia to stay in her old home for the forty days of mourning and unveil the reason why her late father cannot find peace.

Director: Kristina Spassovska

Kristina Spassovska is a writer-director based in Sofia, Bulgaria. She graduated from EICAR (Paris) in 2018 with the short film Motherland, selected at the Zagreb Film Festival and Sofia Film Festival, among others, and awarded with the Film Critics Prize at the Kutaisi Short Film Festival. Kristina is currently in preproduction of a short film supported by the Bulgarian National Culture Fund. Her two following projects are both funded by the Bulgarian National Film Center - the short film The Reptiles (Bulgaria-France), winner of the best script award at the 18th Bulgarian Film Society Competition 2020, and her debut feature film 40, Maria Luisa Boulevard, both produced by Maya Vitkova-Kosev and her company Viktoria Films.

Producer: Maya Vitkova-Kosev

Maya Vitkova-Kosev is a writer-director and producer born in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2008 she executive produced Kamen Kalev’s Eastern Plays, which premiered at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. In 2009 Maya founded Viktoria Films, producing and directing two short films, written by the Golden Bear winner Radu Jude, and her debut film Viktoria, which was the first Bulgarian feature in competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Maya is currently in development of five features, supported by the Bulgarian National Film Center for development and/or production, among them Afrika, developed at Cinelink, ScripTeast (winner of the Krzysztof Kieslowski ScripTeast Award 2018), the Sundance Screenwriters Lab 2018 and the TIFF Filmmaker Lab 2019.

Company profile

In 2008 Maya Vitkova executive produced Eastern Plays by Kamen Kalev. The film premiered at the 62nd Cannes International Film Festival’s Director’s Fortnight. Eastern Plays was nominated for the LUX award, in the official selection of the European Film Awards and was Bulgaria’s candidate for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. In 2009 Maya founded Viktoria Films, producing and directing two shorts written by Radu Jude, and her feature film Viktoria. Viktoria was selected for the Script & Pitch Workshops, Balkan Fund, Berlinale Talent Project Market, NIPKOW Programm, EKRAN Programme and Phare Workshop. Viktoria was supported by the MEDIA Programme, Vienna Film Fund and the Bulgarian National Film Center.