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PRODUCTION Bulgaria

Ilian Metev prepares fiction debut, Mimu Pepo Tati

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- The family drama tells the story of a young pianist willing to start a new life outside Bulgaria

Ilian Metev prepares fiction debut, Mimu Pepo Tati
Director Ilian Metev

Ilian Metev - known for documentary hit, Sofia’s Last Ambulance [+see also:
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- is preparing his fiction debut, Mimu Pepo Tati: a family drama about Mimu, a young pianist, Pepo, her brother, and their father Tati. Fed up with her life and lack of perspectives, 17 year-old Mimu wants to leave her family and start a career abroad, but life manages to throw obstacles in her way. 

Metev says he wants his film to be “simultaneously specific and universal,” adding, “It could be your family, my family, a family we can all relate to. What I am interested in are the personal anxieties and subtle contradictions you find within most families, which all too often prevent us from appreciating each other’s company and spending time in the immediate present together.”

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The film could have been a documentary, but the director considered this approach “too exploitative.” Nevertheless, his approach to the film’s acting and style will be “documentary-like.” “I see it nested somewhere in the fiction-documentary tradition mastered by directors like Olmi, Kiarostami, Loach, and Cantet,” says Metev, who wrote the screenplay with Betina Ip.

The director is now searching for his actors and plans to start shooting next spring, in Sofia, with the hope of wrapping the production within seven weeks. The film is being produced by Chaconna Films (Bulgaria) and co-produced by Sutor Kolonko Filmproduktion (Germany), represented by Ingmar Trost. Mimu Pepo Tati received production support from the Bulgarian National Film Center

Metev’s previous directorial effort, Sofia’s Last Ambulance, was released in 2012. It won awards at Cannes, Karlovy Vary, Jihlava, Leipzig DOK, Zurich and Bratislava.

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