site.btaUS-based Director Elka Nikolova Says New Documentary Inspired by Salvation of Bulgarian Jews

After A Question of Survival, US-based director Elka Nikolova said she is working on a new documentary inspired by the salvation of Bulgarian Jews in World War II. Nikolova made the announcement during her online live participation in the opening of the second edition of the "Friendship – Meaning and Salvation" International Youth Literature Fest on Sunday evening in Burgas, on the Black Sea.

The new film, Seamstress, tells the story of a Bulgarian-Greek Jewish family from New York, in whose history the whole complexity of World War II is entangled, Nikolova explained. She plans to see the project completed in early 2024, and a 50-minute preview version is to be screened on June 25 in Paris. 

Nikolova's online inclusion in the fest was the screening of her first documentary dedicated to the saving of Bulgarian Jews, the 2020 project A Question of Survival. This was also the film's first screening before an audience in Bulgaria, she explained, adding that she did not know how the Bulgarian one had reacted, but it had been very well received by the American audience. The film was screened at the Bulgarian embassy in the USA in April.

A Question of Survival was shot long before it was completed and presented, Nikolova said, soon after she had completed her previous film about noted Bulgarian director Binka Zhelyazkova, Binka: To Tell A Story about Silence of 2006.