Is Cinema Dead? - Chapter 33 - THE PREMIERE

The fact that we had applied for most of the big film festivals around the world put us in a situation where we had to postpone our national theatrical release and distribution.

Before continuing with the story about our premier I guess, it would be nice to mention that at that point we have already got a national distributor. I contacted Christo, the CEO of A+Films which is one the best film distributors in Bulgaria. He watched the film with his wife and he contacted me back to say that he was more than surprised from the film, from its production value and the entire visual style and narration.

Christo was very happy to get on board and to have under his wing the national distribution of the film. Moreover he wanted to help us to make as much money as possible, because he appreciated very much the fact that we were self financed and we have self produced the film. He just said that we would have to apply for a small distribution grant from NFC before releasing the film. He knew that we would like to make a national premiere before waiting for the film festival circuit to finish and he was a little bit concerned by that fact, because we were making something very weird by making two premieres with two independent in time promotional campaigns.

His concern later on proved to be correct, because later on when we were doing our media promotional campaign for the official release of the film in March 2017, most of the medias and tv programs weren't happy to invite us in their shows because we have been already there the previous year with the same news – the new Bulgarian feature film NoOne.

Plamena Gerginova who was the girl who couldn't participate during the shooting of the film, but she was very much involved in the making of NoOne from the very beginning. She wanted very much to organize our premiere of the film in the biggest cinema hall in Bulgaria in the National Palace of Culture. She was working at that time in NPC's film department and in 2016 they made an open call for all of the Bulgarian filmmakers to apply for their co-production grant. We applied with NoOne but we weren't selected, however we earned from this application, an option to make a screening in hall Number 1 during their festival “The week of the Arts”. Plamena who was representing NPC made us a quite good offer, which included promotion and advertisement, PR and media campaign, all covered by them for this screening.

We initially preferred to get a smaller cinema hall for around 600 people but they insisted that we should make our premiere in the biggest hall which is for around 4000 seats. The date which was decided for the premiere was 3th of June 2016. We received at that time several rejections from two or three major film festivals and I started to become a little bit pissed off from this move from our side. I knew in the bottom of my heart that without a proper lobby and already established network of contacts and relationships in the cinema business our festival life can't be successful if at all alive. However I will speak in detail about festival reality for us in a while.

It was May 2016 one month before the premiere and we had to get attention from the public in order to fill up the cinema hall. We decided that the entrance for the film would be only with tickets for 5 euro each. There were no VIP or promotional tickets, even we had to buy tickets for our crew and cast in order to make clear that we didn't want people with invitations and free tickets. We decided this, because we believed that everything which you receive for free is in most of the cases under rated and not properly valued.

Kristian Milatinov came back from Spain to participate in the promotional campaign of the film and to be in the premiere, our PR Vera Bancheva did a great job to organize more than ten TV appearances, we were covered from most of the major medias. Unfortunately in Bulgaria the actors are very occupied even I may say preoccupied with roles and for them it is really hard to be active and in full power when a promotional campaign has to be done. Stoyan Radev couldn't participate at all, Silvia Petkova had a baby at that time and we lost her too for the promotion of the film. Gergana Pletnyova, Yordank Angelova and Kristian were the faces of the campaign. I am writing this because I want to emphasize how important and crucial is this part of filmmaking. Nobody wants to listen and to watch the film's producers, writers or directors. People are eager to watch and listen to the movie stars of the film. This vital stage of the filmmaking process is one of the most neglected steps in Bulgarian filmmaking and I would say in low budget independent filmmaking in general.

I was checking every day how the selling was going on. We were very active and aggressive in our social media campaign too. We had teasers, trailers, small bumper videos, GIFs, posters, all kinds of visuals – billboards, postcards, flayers and many more.

As the days were passing and the date coming over I felt that the mission to bring 4000 people into the cinema to watch a debut of an unknown filmmaker with a strange film was really an impossible mission. However I bought 100 tickets and decided to do some crazy move in order to promote the film.

Kristian, Vasil Goranov- the guy who was making the documentary about NoOne – Who IS NoOne also got with us and so the three of us were walking the streets of Sofia and selling tickets to the people. It was a crazy but great experience and we managed to sell all of the 100 tickets. At the beginning we made a mistake promoting the film as a new Bulgarian film, because the image in general of the Bulgarian cinema is very bad and people were not happy to buy a ticket for bulgarian film. After an hour we adjusted the script and we were speaking to the people as honestly as possible.

Most of them couldn't believe what was happening. They thought that it is a hidden camera perk or something like this. The main actor and the film's director walk with them and try to sell tickets on the streets, who would believe this shit? We did this for three days and at the last one we were proficient in selling. I knew exactly how to pitch the film to a certain target group of people. We were aiming at groups of friends mostly because there it made sense to try to invest your time and energy. This was the week before the premiere, during the day we were walking on the streets and promoting and selling the films and in the evening going to TV's stations to promote the film and giving interviews.

The day came. It was 3th of June 2016. My father and mother were with us, my brother and his wife were with us too. Boris and Blagovesta were with me. It was a nerve breaking experience. However, I couldn't enjoy the entire thing because of a technical problem. The NPC didn't have a proper DCP projector so we had to hire one. I managed to rent the best DCP projector but we had to pay for it too, which was surprising because renting a DCP projector for a day is not cheap. What was even crazier was that the DCP projector with its technician and operator came on the day of the projection. This meant that we didn't have time for testing and so we had to pray for the best if we wanted not to screw the entire event. We had information that more than 2000 people bought tickets for the screening. If the DCP projector or our DCP file didn't work, we would be screwed a big time.

I went on 3th of June around 11 am with the DCP hard disk. The screening had to start from 20:00 or 8 pm. I was calm and in ease, because we already had played the film from the same hard disk in two other cinemas. When I arrived in the projection room, the guy still installed his DCP projector, he told me that he would need a few more hours to install everything so I had to leave the room but I left my hard disk with him. He had to copie the DCP file from the disk into his DCP machine in order to project it properly. This process was as long as the film itself so another one hour and a half had to be added into those few hours for installation. This simply meant that we would have the chance to test the file only one or two hours before the actual screening.

Yavor, Vasil and I came back around 5 pm or 6pm, the DCP operator just copied the film inside the machine. Finally we went to watch the film inside the hall. The screen was massive, the hall even bigger. It is an enormous hall designed for concerts but not for cinema projections. The sound had to be 5.1 surround sound but when they started to play the film it sounded awfully. For me it was a stereo sound and the subwoofer was missing so basically we were missing the low-pitched audio frequencies known as bass, and the right and left surrounds from the back of the hall. Terrible feeling, it was a terrible feeling especially when you know how much work and money we had spent on the sound. Even worse, the sound in NoOne is not just for atmosphere but is an inseparable part of the telling, of the narrative, of the psychology of the characters.

However the worst was just to come, suddenly the moving picture on this huge enormous screen started to freeze or to skip frames, in general there was something very bad going on. I was pissed off, which is the softest thing I could write here, I was really mad, angry and ready to go and smash the DCP operator. I stormed inside the operating room and started shouting at him. The guy was very calm but this was only on the surface. He started to blame our DCP file and the way how we had produced it. Basically this technician was the guy who was making the most DCP files for the rest of the movies in Bulgaria. I even thought that he was sabotaging us in order to scare the shit out of us and to try to manipulate us to use his service for the rest of our future DCP files.

I was so stressed out that I called one of my best friends Todor Kostadinov to go to my house and bring the Blu Ray player, because there was only one hour and a half before the screening. Finally everything went OK with the DCP projector, the guy restarted the machine and prefixed some of the cables but finally he managed to sort out the issue. The film was playing without any problem. We went for the last time to check the sound and the picture and I was already exhausted from all of the technical issues in the hall. The sound was the main thing, it was an analogue mixing system and basically I was shocked that we had to control the volume and the channels and speakers from a sound mixing station. I was going again mad, I couldn’t believe what was happening. After the checking I had to accept the reality and go on with it. However I decided not to watch the film in this hall with this sound and with so many people in it.

It was 8pm and there were so many friends coming in, relatives, cast and crew. Somehow I managed to relax for a bit and I was worried only for one thing, the bloody projector and DCP file to play smoothly through the entire film. I wasn't wary about how the people will react. I didn't have this chance to think about it, I was preoccupied with all of the technicalities that just after the screening.

At 8pm and 10 minutes I lead all of the cast and crew who were with us tonight in front of this huge audience and presented the movie. I was feeling happy and proud of all of us and of what we have achieved so I was feeling very comfortable and at ease in front of so many people. It felt a little bit like a rock and roll concert.

I was feeling relaxed and completely happy while I was meeting so many close friends and people who I haven't seen for so long time and when I was meeting random people too, who were sharing their impression about the film, it was a fantastic experience, worthwhile all of the negatives and nerve wrecking moments before the screening.

To see a full packed enormous cinema hall in front of you brings excitement but obligation too. It requires from you to look objectively at this moment and to see how big cinema might be, how powerful the moving image is and how lucky we are to have the chance to communicate our vision, idea and feeling about the world with so many people. Lastly but not least, this medium gives us the chance to not only communicate but to connect with the audience to get common experience to become one in the dark room.

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The Yatagan premiere was something completely different for me. I experienced it as a real film director. The premiere was happening in Paradise Mall in CInema City on 4 cinema halls for around 2000 people.

I invited more than 50 of my closest friends and we had a blasting evening. The people enjoyed the movie very much. I remember one thing extremely vividly. That night I slept like a baby. This is how my body reacted after one year of intense filmmaking process with constant struggle and problems. But at the end of the day, the result is what is everything after. And the result is that Yatagan WORKS. And people love it.

READ CHAPTER 34