Morgen and Tilt vie for Best Foreign Language Film nomination

by Stefan Dobroiu

23/09/2011 - Romanian and Bulgarian commissions have chosen Morgen [trailer] and Tilt, respectively, to represent the two countries at the next year's Oscars.

Produced by Mandragora Movies with the help of Slot Machine (France) and Katapult Film (Hungary) and internationally handled by Les Films du Losange , Morgen is the first feature from Marian Crisan, a Palme d'Or winner with his short Megatron (2008). The film competed in last year's Locarno film festival, where it won the Special Prize of the Jury and the Ecumenical Jury Award, while the main actors Hathazi Andras and Yalcin Yilmaz took home awards at the 2010 Thessaloniki IFF.

Domestically released in October 2010, Morgen ended its cinema itinerary with a total of 10,796 admissions. The film centres on Nelu (Hathazi), a man in his forties who enjoys fishing in the rivers near his small town on the Romanian-Hungarian border. One day, Nelu ”fishes” something different from the river: a Turkish man (Yilmaz) trying to illegally cross the border...

Tilt is the first feature by director Viktor Chuchkov Jr. and producer Borislav Chuchkov. Domestically released in February, it was the first Bulgarian film screened simultaneously on more than 30 screens. It became the second local production that reached the top of the box office after the tremendous success of Mission London [trailer] in 2010, staying there for four weeks in a row. A co-production with Germany's Ostlicht Filmproduktion GmbH and Bulgarian National Television, the film stars young Bulgarian actors such as Yavor Baharov, Radina Kardzhilova, Ivaylo Dragiev and Ovanes Torosyan.

Tilt has been selected at several international film festivals including Seattle, Göteborg and Montreal and has won several Audience Awards. It tells the story of a young delinquent who falls in love with the daughter of a high-raking official in 1989, during the economically challenged last days of communism and first years of democracy.