Canada Suggests Bulgarian Filmmaker for Oscars Nominations

The Bulgarian director and filmmaker Theodore Ushev. Photo by onf-nfb.gc.ca

A film by the Bulgarian filmmaker Theodore Ushev has been suggested by Canada's National Film Board for the 2011 Oscars nominations in the category for Best Animated Film.

Ushev's film is called "Lipsett Diaries". It was made in cooperation with writer and artistic director Chris Robinson.

The film tells the story of the tormented existence of Arthur Lipsett, a Canadian avant-garde director of short experimental films, who gained most of his success in the 1960's. Suffering from psychological problems that progressed in severity, Lipsett committed suicide in 1986, two weeks before turning 50.

The Bulgarian-born filmmaker has graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia before settling in Montreal in 1999. He quickly acquired reputation as a prolific and gifted animator.

Ushev has explained for the Bulgarian Darik radio how he decided to make a film for Lipsett.

"By accident, when I came to Montreal, I happened to live on the same street that Lipsett lived. This is a movie about the inability of a hypersensitive artist to perceive the surrounding world and to live in harmony with it," Ushev said.

The Bulgarian said he was surprised by the nomination from the Canadian National Film Board because, in his words, his films were not easy to perceive.

"My films are too aggressive and beyond the point of perception. I did not think I had a chance for nomination," he said.

Although he lives in Canada for 11 years now, Ushev does not perceive himself as an immigrant. He claimed his arrival there was "a string of coincidences."

He went there three time to visit friends and liked the relaxing atmosphere. Adding the pressure he felt back at home, he decided it was time to take a life-changing step.

"I told myself I should start from a scratch. If I had stayed in Bulgaria, it would have killed me. I was feeling that I was going down a commercial hole, working for clients and not for me. I could not do what I wanted to do," Ushev said.

The Oscar nominations will be announced in the beginning of 2011.

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