Archidoc. Romain Gary, Walter Benjamin and Fedya
Romain Gary (photo, long after Sofia), also known as Emila Ajar, a legendary French writer, right now subject of a photo exhibition in Paris, was in 1946 sent to Sofia in Bulgaria as a member of the French diplomacy delegation. He was there for two years with his wife Lesley Blanch, had several female relations like one with his Bulgarian secretary, who might have been a spy or just wanted to get help to get out of the country. ”The Bookseller” was the pseudonym given to Gary by the Bulgarian secret service which was following Gary’s life in the Bulgarian capital. The film, to be produced and directed by Assen Vladimirov, veteran in Bulgarian cinema, will be based on the files of the Service, on the memories of Gary, who as a writer was characterised as ”mediocre” by the Service! Vladimirov presented the project in a very entertaining way that fits to the ”funny yet serious” story about a meeting between West and East just after WW2.
Before the war another well known writer and philosopher, Walter Benjamin, was forced into exile in 1933 because of the start of the Nazi hunt on Jews. Benjamin goes to Ibiza, where he stays for one year. While hard times pass in Berlin, Benjamin thinks back on his childhood in the metropol, and starts writing about it. His life on Ibiza and his retro-thinking will be the basis of a film by Andreas Strasser, German director, who has been living in Spain, and who seeks to make the film on the basis of Benjamin’s prose, archive material from the island and from Berlin, as well as archive material made by the director to make Benjamin come alive.
Latvian director Kristine Zelve, however, intends to make a film about a totally unknown Finnish director, Teuvo Tulio, who was born in Latvia and had the nickname Fedya, that will also be the name of the film. Tulio’s name is on a stone monument in his native village, where the inhabitants do not know who he was. A master of melodramatic films, Tulio made his last film in 1972, ”Sensuela”, which was censored as being too erotic, for which reason Tulio withdrew from public life, never made any more films or interviews. In these years he is being taken back to have the recognition he, in the view of many film people, deserves.
Here is only space to mention 3 of the nine projects that were pitched in Paris at the final session of Archidoc. A catalogue can be acquired through:
