Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2019: #139. Last Dear Bulgaria – Aleksey Fedorchenko

Last Dear Bulgaria

Russia’s Aleksey Fedorchenko is preparing his seventh feature, Last Dear Bulgaria, produced by the director himself alongside Andrey Saveliev, Artem Vassiliev (Dovlatov, 2018) and Dmitriy Vorobyev, of SAGa, Metrafilms and 29th February. The project was revealed as at the second edition of cocoWIP, the work-in-progress program at Cottbus in November 2018. Fedorchenko’s work is populated by poetic fantasy elements, his films often employing non-linear tendencies. In 2005, he went the Horizons sidebar in Venice with First on the Moon. He would return to Venice to compete with his third title, Silent Souls, which took home the FIPRESCI Prize. 2012’s Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari went to Rome and then Karlovy Vary, while 2014’s Angels of Revolution premiered in Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. His last feature, 2018’s Anna’s War went to Rotterdam.

Gist: Fedorchenko’s latest is described as a psychological detective story, named for an extinct, fictional variety of apple. Set during WWII, with the narrative taking place during Eisenstein’s filming of Ivan the Terrible, fruit breeder Leonid finds himself evacuated to Southern Kazakhstan. In his new lodging, he finds the diary of Mikhail, who died under mysterious circumstances. Soon, Leonid finds himself digging into what potentially happened to Mikhail.

Release Date/Prediction: While the project was seeking post-production financing in November 2018, Fedorchenko may likely return to Karlovy Vary or Venice, while Locarno may also be an inspired option.