Program Guide - San Francisco International Film Festival - San ...

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WEST COAST PREMIERE
BUlGaria
2008
91 min
Dir Javor Gardev
PrOD Georgi Dimitrov, Ilian Djevelekov, Matey
Konstantinov
Scr Vladislav Todorov
cam Emil Christov
eD Kevork Aslanyan
mUS Kalin Nikolov
caST Zachary Baharov, Tanya Ilieva, Vladimir
Penev, Mihail Mutafov
PrinT SOUrce IFC Films, 11 Penn Plaza, 18th
floor, New York, NY 10001. FAX: 646-273-
7250. EMAIL: ifcfilmsinfo@ifcfilms.com.
Communist slogans, valuable diamonds, rare poisons,
glass eyes and scatological humor—these are just a
few of the elements driving the plot of Javor Gardev’s
immensely energetic debut feature. Using a film noir
framework, exquisite black-and-white cinematography
and rapid-fire dialogue, Zift depicts an ex-con named
Moth (Zachari Baharov) on the night after his release
from prison. Falsely incarcerated for murder in the 1940s,
he proves himself a model Communist while inside and
is released on good behavior two decades later into a
drastically different Bulgaria. On the run from local officials
who want to know the whereabouts of a diamond he is
suspected of stealing, while searching for his ex-girlfriend
and the son he’s never met, Moth is a hardboiled hero who
nevertheless finds time for the poignant reminiscences of
his one-eyed cellmate. With its breathless leaps among
the multiple stories nestled in its overarching narrative,
Zift recalls the masterpieces of American film noir, the
cinema of the Coen brothers or the literature of Roberto
Bolaño. Even with all of these referents, however, Gardev
and screenwriter Vladislav Todorov—adapting his novel of
the same name—have created something sui generis, a
darkly comic riff on Bulgaria’s Communist past. Featuring
a bathhouse scene that equals in visceral audacity the
one in Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, and a revelation
concerning a cache for jewels that tops The Maltese
Falcon, Zift is an unforgettable story about fate, freedom
and society’s various notions of justice.
—Rod Armstrong
JavOr GarDev
Javor Gardev graduated from Sofia University with a Master’s
degree in philosophy and later received another M.A. from the
Krastyo Sarafov Academy in stage directing. He has directed
several stage productions as well as two prior short films. With
Zift, Gardev and screenwriter Vladislav Todorov decided to
employ a “radical attack” on contemporary Bulgarian cinema
in order to trigger productive debate. One of their goals was to
“frame the banality of communist evil . . . to render it utterly odd
by using a set of genre devices.” He is currently working with
Todorov on two other film projects.
SAT APR 25 11:00 KABUKI ZIFT25K
MON APR 27 2:00 KABUKI ZIFT27K
THU APR 30 3:30 KABUKI ZIFT30K
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