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Transgression

TV talk show hosts bait young Yana into confessing her unusual relationship with an aging rocker. This leads to a chase by vigilante group of hunters and other complications. The nonlinear narrative follows Yana's memories: wild parties, a motorcycle rally, threesome with her best girlfriend, beach-side bonfires, a crypto-gay machista's birthday, a cheap tattoo shop, a posh spa hotel, wine testing, pot smoking and transgressive sex.

  • Val Todorov
    Director
    Bulgaria, This Eternal Heresy
  • Val Todorov
    Writer
    Bulgaria, This Eternal Heresy
  • Val Todorov
    Producer
    Bulgaria, This Eternal Heresy
  • Maria Bakalova
    Key Cast
  • Rossen Pentchev
    Key Cast
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Трансгресия
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Genres:
    Drama
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 39 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    March 8, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    17,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Bulgaria
  • Country of Filming:
    Bulgaria
  • Language:
    Bulgarian
  • Shooting Format:
    HD 1080p
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Sofia International Film Festival
    Sofia
    Bulgaria
    March 16, 2018
    Bulgarian Premiere
    Official Selection
Director Biography - Val Todorov

Val Todorov is a writer, film-director and activist. He finished Physics at Sofia University and M.F.A. program in Film and Media Arts at Temple University, Philadelphia. He was a co-author of the first independent project for Constitution of Bulgaria. His fiction book "Irkalla, the Land of the Dead" was a Bulgarian bestseller. From 1991 to 2012 he lived in the USA. He took part in the World Social Forum, Occupy Bulgaria, Life After Capitalism.

Filmography
Bulgaria, This Eternal Heresy – 2014
(Nominated for Best Director and Best Cinematography at the 2014 Bulgarian Film Academy Awards)
Contre Jour – 2014
(Nominated for Best Short Fiction Film at the 2014 Bulgarian Film Academy Awards)

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Director Statement

"Transgression" is a narratively innovative film about pushbutton issues of sexual identity, youth subcultures and East/West clash of world-views. The scenes are strung together not in chronological cause-effect order, but rather in associative patterns simulating the process of mental recall. These associations - visual, musical and verbal - follow faithfully the female protagonist's stream of consciousness. In its discourse with the past, the narrative structure often loops back to key moments of the plot in order to alter and harmonize them with the new facts just revealed.

The reconstructed storyline is relatively simple. TV talk show hosts bait young Yana into confessing her incestuous relationship with the aging rocker Stoil. The viewer is lured into voyeuristic mode; into this noisy, funny and often scary cavalcade of vaguely familiar characters, situations and subcultures. However, under its surface, different and unpleasant truths lurk. The needle of a broken moral compass madly spins and points now to modern alienation and permissiveness, then to backward patriarchy and frightening violence.