site.btaTheodore Ushev’s Life With An Idiot Premieres in Bulgaria at CineLibri Festival

Theodore Ushev’s film Life With An Idiot was presented for the first time in Bulgaria at the French Institute on October 21 as part of the CineLibri international book to film festival in Sofia.

“The film is based on a text by Viktor Yerofeyev. In the early 1990s, composer Alfred Schnittke wrote an opera inspired by this work, after which it continued to inspire various artists and art forms. In 1991, it was adapted into a film by director Aleksandr Rogozhkin,” said CineLibri’s Executive Director Alexandra Alexandrova.

“We have the honour to have here tonight someone directly responsible for my decision to make this film. I discovered this text sometime in the 1990s, in a translation by Georgi Borisov, who is here with us,” Theodore Ushev said.

“This film lived within me for over 20 years, and I never found the courage to begin it, knowing how difficult it would be to bring it to life anywhere, given the way it is told. Fortunately, I found brave partners in Miyu Productions in Paris, who said, "Yes, we want to make this film, this is a film for us." It was extremely difficult to finance and make, since it was painted frame by frame, in watercolour on paper. It took me three to four years,” the animator explained.

“In fact, I wanted to tell this story from another angle, to ask who the idiot really is. How society creates idiots because it is idiotic itself. When complete idiots lead most countries, the biggest and most powerful ones, things become very grim. Idiocy takes over the world. Idiots are multiplying. This is a film about violence,” Ushev added.

The head of the French Institute in Sofia, Luc Levy, noted that, as every year, the CineLibri festival dedicates one evening to France, and the 2025 edition is devoted entirely to Theodore Ushev. Ushev said Life With An Idiot was filmed entirely in France and that he had the honour of knowing Viktor Yerofeyev.

Three more of Ushev’s films were screened the same evening, including the short film The Wolf, which is in the preliminary selection of films that are considered for Oscar nominations.