There's a saying that before seeing the film in a theater watching it alone, you never can be sure whether you like or dislike the film which you have made.
It was the 9th of March Blagovesta's birthday and on the next day was Boris’ birthday. He was becoming 2 years old. We celebrated their birthdays and we celebrated the completion of the film. It was a very happy moment but on other hand we were completely exhausted. Blagovesta most of everybody else was so tired. She was looking after Boris and the family, and I was completely absorbed making the film.
I managed to get some projects meanwhile and to earn some cash from making corporate videos. However, we still were broke and I was getting quite deep in debts. Our old Subaru Impreza was not any more safe to be driven and we left without a car. Actually I broke down the Subaru while shooting the film, using it as a jeep driving this car so high and off-road, on some very rough terrains. Luckily for us, Georgy Zafirov, Blagovesta's uncle gave us as a present his old Opel Astra and thus we again had a family car.
This was constantly happening to us, it is the great paradox of life, where you achieve something, you accomplish and get to achieve the goal which you were fighting for, but at the same time you lose something else, you pay the price for going and daring to make your dream reality.
In April 2016 we organized the first private cinema screening for our close friends, for the people who helped us during the making of the film and for all of our private investors.
Ivo and I booked one of the best cinemas in Sofia, which had the best screen, and sound system. It was the time where for the first time I would sit in the dark cinema hall and watch on a huge, massive screen our film. There's a saying that before seeing the film in a theater watching it alone, you never can be sure whether you like or dislike the film which you have made. I had already seen the film on my home projection from a projector and frankly I was very happy from the final result, however I was very curious to see the film on a big screen. I was excited and nervous at the same time. I was satisfied and grateful, but I was very eager to see how people will react to it.
Two days before the projection I dropped the DCP to the cinema's projectionist and Ivo and I were ready to watch the film for the first time. Ivo was a bit nervous too, he said that every cinema theater is completely different from one another, he was very much concerned to see whether our color grading would be reproduced correctly from what we had seen on the color correction display monitor. But I was concerned about everything, the sound, the picture, and most of all for the overall impression of the film. I was looking to see whether we have achieved the goal which we set from the very beginning. To create a film, which is a character driven poetry, about the inner transformation of a young woman.
We sat in the middle of the hall which was for around 500 seats. It was a very big cinema hall with a huge screen. I was feeling how the butterflies in my stomach were flying like crazy. The complete darkness and us. Suddenly the light from the DCP projector went on, the beginning of the film is with 10 sec title cards and logos, however when the first sound came I was blown away from the low frequency sound which hit me in the stomach and I went completely speechless. Since that moment I was completely immersed in this experience called CINEMA. I was inside the film for the whole 90 minutes of it. I was enjoying the film, its story, its characters, its controversial narration style, its music, sound, colors. I was moved so strongly from those huge close ups, that I almost forgot that I was making this film, that I knew all of those characters in real life, that I was growing up in that place. I was sitting in the hall as a random audience member, watching a film without analyzing or criticizing it. I surrendered to the film, I relaxed and enjoyed every frame of it. At the end of the film I was stunned and astonished from the work which we have done. I was entirely thankful and proud of everyone who worked and created this film. And finally I managed to realize how big a sacrifice everyone has made in order the film to be the film which I was watching at the cinema.
When the film finished I felt a great amount of energy. A great amount of inspiration, I was uplifted and energized, I was hooked again from the film. I said to myself that I would do everything possible this film to reach as many people as possible, to reach as many film festivals as possible and that I would do everything possible to make this film a success story not only creatively but financially, because I felt a great obligation to make at least one thing for our investors, at least to recoup enough money with the film in order to cover and give back for their investment.
Before the screening in front of our friends and investors I felt very confident and calm. I was sure inside myself that I did a hell of a lot of a work and that we created with extremely little budget a really brave, bold and artistic film, with high production value. For the screening came most of the invited guests. Emelina came with her parents, she didn't listen to the final master and sound mix, she moreover wasn't able to hear the sound in 5.1 surround system cinema hall. My partners from Leya, a company which I co-found in 2014 and which was the general sponsor of the film, were also in the hall. Yavor and Yordanka were also welcoming our guests. Blagovesta was with me, and thus we were ready to show the film.
I watched the entire film for a second time in a period of three days. I found out that watching a film with an audience and especially with this kind of audience changes the experience totally. I suddenly felt a little bit conscious and worried. I started to be aware and be overly sensitive of every little reaction from the audience. I started to worry a bit whether they would like it or not, whether they would find it boring and pretensions, or whether they would feel that they have wasted their money on a non commercial film. Those concerns of course made my watching experience much more tense and stressful. At the end of the film we escorted our guests and made small talks with each one of them. It was a cocktail with mixed feelings, we were quite nervous but at the same time happy and relieved that at least we made our promise to create and make a feature length film and at most we achieved our creative goal to produce and create a small art-house film with commercial potential.
At the end of April a few weeks after the first screening we organized another screening for the crew and cast of the film, in a small art-house cinema G8 Cinema. Only Yavor, Blagovesta, Emelina, Yordanka and I had seen the film before that. For the screening with the crew and cast I can share that it is nerve wracking experience as well. It has a very specific atmosphere in the cinema hall when most of the people who have worked on the film are sitting and watching it for the first time. The actors in general are very self absorbed people with a great amount of self awareness and critics. The other creative guys and girls as well are very self critic and it is very difficult for them to see at first glance more of the positives and less of the negatives. However at the end of the screening, most of them were very happy from the result. Few later on appeared to be disappointed with certain aspects of the film. I must say that probably because all of them gave more than 100% into the project they felt it was very personal and somehow like their own project, moreover most of them were film directors and every film director has his own vision and idea how a particular story has to be told. I had to get all of these details in consideration when I was receiving their feedback, in order my initial perception and feeling about the film not to be shifted and twisted by their reaction to it.
This is extremely important, because none of them or let's say most of them won't be doing any promotional, distributional work, they basically won't be involved in the selling of the film. The worst thing which could happen to a film is its own creators not liking it, because how a disliked product by the creators can be promoted to the public.
Last but not least is my observation from those two screenings that every person has his own individual experience from the film. They have their own understandings of the film's story and theme, of its character's development etc. Everybody would try to present his or her vision of how the things should or would or had to to look like. Especially this is true for the cast of the film, actors in general tend to try to pull the story and the film to their side and to their characters, and even though the film has been edited and wrapped they still would love to see more of that scene, the other shot and basically more from themselves. This is totally natural and normal, however I had to digest some negative reactions from the cast but then with time passing everybody from the cast started to enjoy and to appreciate objectively the real value of the film.
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For Yatagan the entire experience was much more different. We had the privilege to watch almost any stage of the film from its first assembly to the final cut on a big screen. And to see the film on a big screen in its rough stage is very helpful regarding the editing process.
However, it is always a nerve wracking to sit in a room with people who have ever seen the film and watch it with them. And on top of that when you see your movie for more than three consecutive times on a big screen for just a week you start to have a very strange feeling about the entire film.
This is I think the greatest danger which a movie has on its way to the final cut.Sometimes you hate everything about it, sometimes you love and admire everything about it. It is really a very strange and bizarre moment in the filmmaking process. Here I feel how my emotions are getting stretched the most. It is a cocktail of positive and negative emotions, of doubts and belief.
We watched Yatagan for more than five times with different audiences before the final cut. And the audience were random. We watched it with our cinematographers, with PR and Product placement companies with creative agencies.
The weirdest screening was with one creative agency. The weird thing was that no one of them laughed and had fun while watching it. And this is very disturbing to observe when the film is a crime comedy. However, after that it seemed that they indeed liked it, so this is just a small glimpse of what is the price of being a filmmaker.
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