SHIP IN A ROOM / КОРАБ В СТАЯ

Philipp, a cameraman who spent part of an energetic youth photographing conflicts in Lebanon, but whose inspiration has left him. While attempting to take pictures of a crowded opening for a local supermarket, he ends up befriending Pavla, who is being forced out of her flat. He reluctantly offers a spare room in his public housing complex to her and her brother, Ivan, who is so severely depressed that he barely speaks and is often heavily sedated. Ivan has not left his apartment in over a year, content with building model ships to fill his waking life.
Philipp soon takes an interest in coaxing Ivan out of his state, and begins to record quotidian sequences around town for Ivan to watch on a projector in an improvised movie theater created in a spare room. Ivan slowly becomes a cinephile, attending Philipp’s screenings on a regular basis.

“Rather than focusing on the images for their dramatic purposes, I wanted to show these images as they were. What I wanted to express through them is the feeling of facing reality when, for example, you’re on a train and sitting across from someone. If Ivan can see that person illuminated in front of him, he can experience reality again. What is important to me is to express and feel that reality as it is.”

Lyubomir Mladenov