"My parents were refugees," Georgi Djulgerov starts off by saying. "My dad was born near Istanbul, and my mom is a Macedonian-Bulgarian born near Thessaloniki. At that time, these areas were part of Bulgaria. My birth town is Bourgas."

The love that one of Bulgaria's best-known film directors has for his natal city is evident in his eyes, and the next thing he mentions is how he has set up a Sofia Film Fest at the coast, this year being its fourth apparition, which will start on March 16 in Bourgas.

It will complement the 10th annual Sofia Film Festival, which began on March 9.

"But you must talk more to him," continues Djulgerov, indicating his cohort film producer Vladimir Andreev. "His English is better."

Together, the men run Borough Film, headquarted in Sofia, which has been in existence since 1992. It was founded by Andreev, Georgi Balkanski, who is still with the company, and another partner who has since left.

In Bulgarian, the company's name is "Buhruh", a word that has no meaning, according to Andreev.

"We produce more or less all kinds (of films), but we don't do any animation. Maybe it's a good idea to specialise, but you can't survive that way", he says. "In Bulgaria for sure you cannot. We produce documentaries, feature films, are executive directors for foreign films who work here, we work for TV..."

Andreev says that there were years and years when, in all of Bulgaria, there were only one or two films produced a year.

"Before `85," says Djulgerov, "the Bulgarian feature films were 20-25 a year for cinema, and 40 for TV. But, the producer was the government, the state. We filmmakers were the orphans of the state, because the Communist Party didn't love us very much due to some decisions. There was no big quantity of film that the government liked. We tried to speak about destiny."

After 1989, in 1990, specifically, filmmakers tried to reform the Bulgarian production system by following the French model. The state then promised them work and money, and the filmmakers believed that the state would keep its promises.

"That model didn't work out here," says Andreev. He noted that the French system gives a percentage of ticket sales back to the industry. That didn't occur.

"That's why the quantity went so quickly from 25 to one."

Says Djulgerov: "We found ourselves like soldiers deeply in the lines of the enemies - without resources. Many of my colleagues died from the stress."

With a look of pain, he named Eduard Zahariev and Lyudmil Kirkov as just two.

"Somehow I survived because I'm a teacher in the academy. I worked on TV," he said.

"The fact is that only Bulgaria among the old socialist countries has made such radical reforms and lost a connection with the past. We were very careful to make reforms. They still keep government production now."

In Bulgaria, filmmakers were very isolated, receiving no information about the US film industry, leaving them with no idea about how the film industry was advancing.
As to the modern film industry, "I'm very glad to see that European cinema is keeping its tradition", says Djulgerov.

"The main difference between us and the US is that all American cinematographers want (general) appeal, as the cinema is a commercial product," he states. "If it's a commercial product, it means no government intervention. There's no secret that the US cinema has a monopoly in distribution - about 85 per cent."

Since 2004, there has been a law instated in Bulgaria providing filmmakers with subsidies for six to eight "huge films" and for about 20 documentaries. Also, there's a quota for five per cent of film screenings in Bulgaria to be of Bulgarian films.

In truth, the subsidies provide for an average budget for about five films, but, as the two were quick to point out, "no film gets fully subsidised".

That is how they made their most recent film, Lady Zee.

One would wonder where such men cull their ideas.

"It depends," says Djulgerov. "Sometimes it's literature, a vision. Especially this one, Lady Zee."

He tells of how his interest in orphanages started in about 1999. He had originally wanted to film a boy's or girl's life at one such establishment from about age 10 until he or she left the orphanage, at 17 or 18.

"That was my idea. I began to prepare it, but it was impossible to produce it."

A co-worker introduced him to a story from which Djulgerov then took a single episode, and applied it.

He visited orphanages, prisons, prostitutes, all in search of first-hand, authentic, painful experiences of what would become his film: the story of an orphan girl forced into prostitution against her will.

"We decided to film an unprofessional actor. It was a very big risk," he says. "Anelia (Anelia Garbova, the principal character in Lady Zee, "Zlatina") is not a professional, she's an orphan from Plovdiv. We met her at a summer camp for orphans near my birth town of Bourgas."

They did a casting, and chose her because of one thing: Djulgerov had asked an orphan Roma boy with a beautiful voice to sing a song for the film. The boy was too shy, so Djulgerov asked him to sing it for Anelia.

"And when we looked at her, she had tears in her eyes," says Djulgerov. "He (Andreev) and I exchanged glances, and..."

At the beginning of filming, which covered four years, Anelia and her counterpart Pavel (Pavel Paskalev, who plays "Lechko") understood that they could do a decent job of acting, he says.

"All at once, we told them that they're very great. For them, such things happen for the first time... Now, shooting a film, they become a person. After our praise, they become very proud, and begin to work better and better. Especially Ani, she grew up before our eyes."

Djulgerov is beaming.

When he was young, Georgi Djulgerov wanted to be a film director. He first began to think about the cinema when he was 14.

 "I like cinema very much. It was forbidden for me, because my parents were afraid of me being some kind of artist."

When he graduated from high school, he told his parents of his desires, which they deplored. He recalls how his father told him: "Oh, my son. The poorest people own the beach on the Black Sea. They eat only cheese, bread and onion."

But his father supported him. A worker at a soap factory, he sent half of his salary to support his son at the State University of Cinematography in Moscow.

"When I began directing, every time I'd show my films in Bourgas, he'd cry. He'd say: `I'm so proud of you!'" reminisces Djulgerov.

For Vladimir Andreev, the arts were in his family. His father is writer Vesselin Andreev.

"Before directing, I studied math. It was mainly my mother's idea," he says. "Seeing the life of my father, she'd say: `In art, there's always politics and censorship,' so she pushed me to math."

Andreev still wanted to direct, however, so after finishing his maths studies in 1980, he went to Boyana Film Studios.

"I was sent to his (Djulgerov's) film Measure According to Measure. That's how we started working together."

He later studied both at the State University of Cinematography in Moscow and at Sofia's National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts.

The sale of Boyana Film to the American company NuImage enrages both men.

Djulgerov, who is on the board of directors of Boyana Film, says that they're fighting against NuImage.

"There are good American films, and bad American films," attests Andreev. "And what NuImage makes is the worst."

Djulgerov continues: "They'll continue to make their bad films and push everyone out."

"We tried to stop it, but it didn't work out. There are other interests, mainly the land."

"NuImage bought the land for six leva a sq m. That makes out to three euro a sq m. The industrial price, the real price for this land is 100 euro a sq m."

"The same thing happened with Sofia's cinemas," says Andreev. They were sold as cinemas, he says, with no contract provisions to change the use. But they re-sold them after about two years. Now they're casinos, supermarkets.

"They've not yet paid the penalties," he says. "Even if they did, they'd still make out." Small cinemas across the country are being bought up and disappearing.

"In small villages, there are no cinemas," Andreev says regretfully. "Fifteen years ago, there were 3500 cinemas across the country. Now, there are less than 160."

When asked their opinion on the new concept of distributing films in the cinema, on TV, on internet and on DVD all within a period of a few days, such as Steven Soderberg is doing with his small-budge film Bubble, they express thoughts of doubt.

"They're trying to fight piracy, but I don't know that it will work," says Andreev. "I believe that films are made to be shown and seen in cinema houses. For me, it's the best way to see a film. No matter how big a plasma screen you have. You go see it on the big screen, the people (`their influence on you in the dark hall,' interjects Djulgerov), no cats, no telephone..."

It's an occasion for social interaction.

Andreev and Djulgerov recall the film festival in Bourgas a couple of years ago. They invited children from local orphanages to come to the screening of a children's film. Apparently this was a novelty.

"They were so surprised from the big screen and the sound," smiles Djulgerov. "They were afraid. The same thing with Pavel's friends. And the teachers told me that it'd been 10 years since they'd been to the cinema."

Next up for the pair at Borough is a long-metrage called Kozel (Goat), based on a Yordan Radichkov story. It deals with goats, goatherds, and, of course, love. Don't look for it quite yet, however. "It takes time in Bulgaria to... two years, I guess," says Djulgerov.

We'll wait.