Martichka Bozhilova of Bulgarian prodco Agitprop has never let location put her at a disadvantage in the world of international documentary production, but now the award-winning producer is achieving success in scripted coproductions.
Martichka Bozhilova
Coproduction is a word never far from the lips of execs looking to get shows made, but the process is rarely easy and nowhere is this more evident than in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Despite its shared history, this is a region where collaboration is particularly challenged on cultural, political and economic grounds.
So it is with a certain sense of pride that Martichka Bozhilova, a veteran of the copro, recounts the significance of playing a part in the new eight-part crime drama Operation Sabre, a coproduction between Serbian and Bulgarian partners based on the real events of the assassination of the Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić in 2003.
Describing it as “our first breakthrough” – the series is being repped internationally by Beta Film and received its world premiere at Canneseries this year, where it won the Special Interpretation Award – Bozhilova, lead producer at Bulgarian prodco Agitprop, notes: “It turned out to be the first official regional coproduction” of South East Europe.
Agitprop coproduced Operation Sabre with This & That Productions for Serbian pubcaster RTS. It received backing from the Bulgarian National Film Centre (BNFC) and was acquired by Bulgarian private national TV channel bTV. As well as its Canneseries accolade, the eight-parter recently also scooped the top prize at Serial Killer, the international festival of TV and web series that takes place in Brno, Czechia.
Operation Sabre focuses on the assassination of Serbian premier Zoran Đinđić
Operation Sabre may have marked a significant milestone for Agitprop in the scripted genre, but it joins a long line of coproductions for the company, which has been something of a pioneer in CEE international documentary copros.
“Many things in my career happened for the first time as a Bulgarian professional because I was lucky to work in a time of great changes and attempts in Eastern Europe to break with the stigma of closed and non-transparent systems and to bring its talents to the rest of the world,” comments Bozhilova, who started in unscripted before also branching into drama a decade ago.
Aside from Operation Sabre, her production credits include the 2018 arthouse feature film, Touch Me Not, winner of Golden Bear at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival, and the award-winning 2011 documentary The Boy Who Was a King. The film explores the strange history of Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha who became Bulgaria’s tsar at age six but was exiled during years of communism only to return afterwards and be elected prime minister.
According to Bozhilova, though, “one of the proudest moments” was when her documentary film, Palace for the People, about the largest communist buildings in the world, including Ceausescu’s palace in Bucharest, the People’s Palace in Berlin and Moscow State University, became the first Bulgarian film to ever be acquired by the BBC Storyville strand. Bozhilova, whose documentaries have sold all over the world, including to ARD, ZDF, Arte, Channel 4 and PBS, describes Storyville as “legendary”.
Bear With Me was a finalist at the Content Warsaw Copro Pitch 2024
Bozhilova, therefore, is no doubt hopeful that her long-gestating documentary project Bear With Me, which was a finalist at the Content Warsaw Copro Pitch 2024, will find its way on to Storyville one day. Eight years in the making, the project follows the story of a former circus star Maxy and her bear Natasha, who were granted permission to live in a parking lot in front of a private zoo in the Netherlands.
“Director Martin Genovski and writer and award-winning novelist Mihail Veshim approached me with the story. I was very intrigued,” says Bozhilova. Now, after three years of shooting the pair, Bozhilova says the production has moved to the next stage of “sorting through history and rebuilding the pieces of Maxy and Natasha’s lives from their glory years by means of archives.”
The production already has ZDF and Arte on board as broadcast partners, while Germany’s Autentic is handling international distribution, but the doc requires more funds for the purchase of “expensive international never-before-seen archives,” as well to cover post-production “in order to reach both high-art and mainstream production,” says Bozhilova.
“In its essence, this is a love story in an unusual coexistence of a woman and a wild animal, a family story,” she explains, “but an important part of it is to tell why wild animals used to be the main entertainment in circuses, but now this is unthinkable, and how society has evolved from the time of the 1980s, which we observe through Maxy’s story and life.”
Father’s Day is a high-end drama series for Bulgarian national broadcaster BNT
A key driver in Bozhilova’s relentless drive to get her projects coproduced internationally is the state of the TV market in Bulgaria. Bozhilova describes it as “small and non-transparent” with most local TV stations focused on soap operas, while “the public broadcaster often does not perform its functions as an institution that regularly supports local TV production.
“In these conditions,” continues Bozhilova, “Agitprop develops its own productions, which are more ambitious, striving for international coproducers and working with various international TV channels, as well as with European funds.”
The Creative Europe Media programme is one such fund that has enabled Agitprop to enter the pitching forums in Europe, according to Bozhilova. One project on Agitprop’s current development slate that has benefited from this is Gold War, a drama inspired by true events when the USSR’s rhythmic gymnasts reigned supreme but at a terrible cost to the athletes. The project has also received financing from the BNFC.
Bozhilova says, even in development, the project has been well received including a Special Mention in C21’s Digital Drama Pitch 2024, and is now “at an advanced stage of financing”.
Gold War is created and co-written by Teodora Markova, co-creator and co-writer on Soviet Jeans, a 1970s-set drama about an ardent rock and roll fan who sets up a successful and illegal underground jeans factory in a Latvian psychiatric hospital. The drama won the audience award at SeriesMania 2024. Markova and Bozhilova have previously worked together on 2019’s Father’s Day, a high-end drama series for Bulgarian national broadcaster, BNT.
But moving into the scripted genre was not something Bozhilova had considered earlier in her career. Indeed, it was a leap of faith on her part when she decided to “start a new adventure” as she puts it. “Even before the hype around international coproductions had started, I took the challenge to step into the TV series market,” she recalls. “I started to educate myself and did some of the best programmes in Europe for showrunning and TV series development. In this way, I became one of the first Eastern European producers to work in the European market and offer narrative content of a universal character with international potential.”
Today, Bozhilova and Agitprop are involved in some of the most high-profile drama coproductions being produced and developed in CEE. One of these is A Girl from Tallinn, which was recently shortlisted for the 2024 Content London Drama Series Pitch.
Coproduction A Girl from Tallinn
The thriller is a coproduction between Zolba Productions (Estonia), Film.UA Group (Ukraine) and Agitprop (Bulgaria). Other partners include Eesti Telefilm, part of Estonian Public Broadcasting, Go3, the pan-Baltic VoD platform, and LTV, the Latvian public broadcaster. The project is also a beneficiary of funding from the BNFC and the Creative Europe Media scheme.
“The series is in pre-production and filming will take place next year,” explains Bozhilova, who praises the BNFC for putting “Bulgaria on the map of the TV market, which until recently was not the case”, through its support of European and international series.
Bulgaria’s talent, facilities, location and cash rebates are other factors that are helping to put the country on the map of TV production.
“Bulgaria has many positives when it comes to international coproductions,” says Bozhilova, pointing to the production services it can offer and “the minority coproduction schemes” it boasts that “are predictable, regular and successful”. On both Touch Me Not, a coproduction between five countries, and Operation Sabre, Bulgaria participated not only on the technical front, but also “with high-quality professionals, and talent that is very well received by the international market,” Bozhilova says.
“Labour is still cheap, and the numerous American and European productions that come to shoot here keep our technical crews in excellent condition. Recently, we built the great hall of the Kremlin for 5,000 people for The Great Ambition the Italian-Bulgarian-Belgian coproduction for RAI, directed by Andrea Segre. This became possible with the inclusion of an international cash rebate that BNFC has been administering for two years. It amounts to 25% of the costs incurred and is also well-functioning and predictable,” she explains.
Looking ahead, Bozhilova would like the international streamers to pay more attention to her region of CEE. “So far, many of the global TV players and streamers do not produce original content in our part of Europe. Only Poland and to some extent the Czech Republic and Hungary are on the map of this TV phenomenon. I believe that with our permanent presence on the European content market, we prove that we, from the Balkans and from the Baltic States, can also produce compelling and high-quality stories that can be important for the local market, but also travel on the small screens at a regional and global level.
“Eastern Europe is an undiscovered opportunity that would provide not only wonderful locations and professionalism at a good price, but also a certain amount of local funds that would be a good basis for the inclusion of a number of streamers and international studios to enter into coproduction with Agitprop and the other internationally represented companies from our part of Europe.”
