Maya Vitkova
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Unbuttoned: Maya Vitkova’s Viktoria
There is little navel-gazing in writer/director/co-producer Maya Vitkova’s Viktoria, in spite of the film’s specific focus and autobiographical elements. In fact, there is no navel at all on its principal protagonist, the young Viktoria (Daria Vitkova as a small child, Kalina Vitkova as a preteen and teenager, both nieces of the filmmaker). She is born in Bulgaria in 1979 without bellybutton or umbilical cord. Her birth falls on the anniversary of the Socialist Revolution, a pretext for the politically motivated anointment of the “Baby of the Decade” and adulation by the general population, at least until their system buckles. “We […]
by Howard Feinstein on Apr 29, 2016 -
Interview with Viktoria Director Maya Vitkova
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Vitkova: I’d been working on a project as a 1st AD. At the end of the last shooting day, after almost 10 years of hard work as a 1st and 2nd AD, I promised myself I’d never do this thankless job again. The same evening I sat down and wrote an 18-page treatment, a story that had never really crossed my mind. Viktoria’s plot came easily, made me laugh while putting it into words, and then cry at the end. Viktoria has been very obsessive ever since, didn’t leave me until I completed […]
by Danielle Lurie on Jan 23, 2014 -
Viktoria | Director Maya Vitkova
Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? While working on […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2014
