Chance sometimes does things well. While shooting his first live-action feature film in his native Bulgaria, Phi 1.618filmmaker Theodore Ushev was approached by Borislav Kolev, who wanted to make a documentary about his life and work, Theodore Ushev. Invisible links. Two years later, the two films hit theaters two weeks apart in his adopted country.
“It was not planned at all; nothing is planned in my life, affirms the one who signed more than a dozen short films at the NFB for which he won more than 150 awards. It’s really been an incredible year, I think I live in a dystopian world! »
In fact, having just returned from California, where Phi 1.618 had just won the Palme d’or at the Beverley Hills Film Festival, Theodore Ushev learned that the film had won a prize at the Moscow Film Festival – where he had sent a version including three subliminal messages written in Russian: “Putin is shit”; “No to war”; and “Fuck you”. At the time of the meeting at the offices of the Dutyhe was about to write his refusal speech.
“It was a Russian director friend who suggested that I submit this film which denounces fascism. I sent him and, two days later, I learned that he had been selected in competition. Because of everything going on in Russia, I was hesitant at first to accept, then I had the idea of adding subliminal images to it, a technique that I love and have been using since Tower Bawher. Art has always been a political gesture for me. In all my films, there is a political message, except in Sonambulo and in Demon. So to win this prize in Moscow is the icing on the cake. »
It is not yesterday that Theodore Ushev leads a fight against fascism. Already, in Sofia, where he was a poster designer, he was organizing anti-Putin demonstrations. Very early, in his cinematographic work, he expressed his opposition to totalitarianism.
“When I did Tower Bawher, Drux Flux And Gloria Victoria, I had the feeling that Russian fascism was coming. All three films are carried by Russian music and relate to Russian art. When I started working on Phi 1.618, before the pandemic, we would never have believed that there was going to be a war. When the war broke out, I said to myself that finally, I had not made a dystopia, but social realism, a documentary on what is happening now, “said the man who has lived in Montreal since 1999.
anti-fascist art
Set in a hopefully distant future, Phi 1.618 features a calligrapher ordered to copy all the books, Krypton (Deyan Donkov), who, with the help of a young punk who has come out of a forbidden book he was about to burn, Gargara (Martina Apostolova), wants to get out of her eternal sleep Fia (Irmena Chichikova), the last woman of humanity, before men, transformed into immortal biotitans, leave the Earth, which has become too toxic, and conquer the cosmos.
“The idea of immortality is at the heart of every totalitarian system. If we became immortal, there would be no more culture because artists would not rush to create works. The only ones who would know how to use immortality would be despots, tyrants at the head of a totalitarian regime. Totalitarian regimes always seek to convert women, to make them machines of reproduction, but in Phi 1.618, reproduction is useless. That women are no longer active is what the extreme right wants. Women have always been against male totalitarianism; for me, man is always war; and woman is always life and love. »
When Vladislav Todorov sent his screenplay, taken from his novel The Spinning Topunpublished in French and English, Theodore Ushev found so many elements that resembled him that he wanted to make the film.
“However, I was aware that this film might not be liked, that people would find it a little strange dramaturgically because I was going to build it like a video game — I even included icons that come of Minecraft. Honestly, the story didn’t interest me, it was the aesthetics and the message that mattered to me. What’s also important is that people don’t find my films boring, so I always stick to the playful side. »
With the screenwriter’s agreement, the filmmaker appropriated his universe, going so far as to cut off half of the dialogue: “When you take away the possibility for actors to play with words, you take away their baggage, their brushes, It’s like telling them they’re only going to draw with black and white, which forces them to play with their face. With the screenwriter, we fought a lot, and if it had only been me, I would have made a silent film, without words. »
From short to long
If the transition from short to feature film and from animation to live action has been smooth, Theodore Ushev has no intention of abandoning animated shorts. Thus, he is finalizing the editing of a short film, produced by Étienne Hansez, co-producer of Phi 1.618and for next year, he is preparing another for the French audiovisual production company Arturo Mio.
“Animation will always be my favorite brush, but I’ve done so many animated shorts that at some point I felt like I was making the same movie all the time. Before shooting the film, I did lots of drawings; my storyboard was precise, everything was planned down to the last sequence. Of course, we had to make changes on set because the shoot was only 23 days and we had a very limited budget, but I managed to shoot all the plans I had in mind thanks to my experience in animation. »
In addition to the two shorts in preparation, Theodore Ushev is seeking funding for two live-action feature films. Not bad for those who call themselves “very lazy” in Borislav Kolev’s documentary.
“When I work, I don’t feel like it’s work, I’m having fun. Give me my favorite toy and I’ll play for hours; animation is my favorite toy. I am still disciplined; if I decide to work four hours, I will do it. I have to find a way to have fun, otherwise I can’t work. I don’t want to say it’s good or it’s useful because it takes away my possibility of working in commercial and paid projects. I tried, but I can’t. I suffer when they tell me what to do,” concludes the filmmaker, for whom the height of happiness is to create in the solitude and silence of an abbey.
The documentary Theodore Ushev. Invisible links will be presented at the Sommets du cinema d’animation on May 13, 6 p.m., at the Fernand-Seguin room of the Cinémathèque Quebecand hits theaters May 19.