24/08/2015 - The drama will explore how powerless we are in the face of destiny

Lyubomir Mladenov is currently shooting Ship in a Room, a drama about three characters facing extraordinary circumstances. The project is being produced by Svetla Tsotsorkova and Nadejda Koseva for Front Film. The Chouchkov Brothers and Audiovideo Orpheus are the two co-production companies, both of which are Bulgarian. 

Philippe (Tzvetan Aleksiev), a photographer who struggles with failure as an artist, meets Pavla (Elena Dimitrova) by accident. He takes her in, together with her brother Ivan (Ivan Dimitrov), and finds a way to make Ivan, who has stopped going outside after he was attacked and beaten up a year ago, open up to the world: Philippe takes pictures of the outside world and shows them to Ivan, helping him come back to life. But destiny has a way to challenge the protagonists' fragile happiness. 

Mladenov, who is also the scriptwriter, says, "Ship in a Room is an attempt to react to what's happening with people today – hatred, fear, isolation, scepticism, violence. Philippe is a conflicting character. He feels his own failure and tries to cope with it. An important part of the film's message is that no one has power over his or her own existence; everyone needs other people."

The movie has a budget of approximately €275,000, and the Bulgarian National Film Center helped the production along with a grant of €204,000. The film started shooting in mid-August and will wrap in mid-September. Dian Zagorchinov is the DoP. The main locations are Sofia, Bozhurishte, Sliven and Burgas, and post-production is expected to be completed by December.