After a series of successful projects, the talented director and choreographer Kosta Karakashyan is about to make his new short film with its premiere in the fall.
“Surrender” is a film that will focus our attention on four of the most successful and captivating male dancers in Bulgaria, combining their original performances with first-person documentaries. The film traces the personal connection of each of them with dance and explores how it interacts with the idea of masculinity in Bulgarian society.
The topic of masculinity in male dancers is full of clichés and myths, which professionals reveal with ease and openly share their personal emotions and experiences in front of the camera.
The documentary part of the project is led by Alexander Tsekov, a creative consultant of the film, who collects the stories of the dancers in a series of candid interviews and together with the director Kosta Karakashyan builds their visual presentation in the film.
“Surrender” is a natural continuation of my work so far, which combines dance cinema with documentary and social. This time I was inspired by four exceptional dancers from Bulgaria, who are not only brilliant artists, but also very interesting people. I am excited to meet the audience with them to show the stories and the efforts behind their performances, “said Kosta Karakashyan.
The production does not release the names of the selected dancers for now, but they promise interesting locations and a hot band, on which hard work is already in full swing.
The project is part of the dance trilogy BECOMING within the program “Focus: Cinema Dance”, which is implemented with the support of the National Fund “Culture”. The film is a co-production of the Man with a Hat Foundation with artistic director Stefani Handzhiyska, Gray Universe with executive producer Lyubomir Balabanov and Studio Karakashyan.
Kosta Karakashyan is a director, choreographer and dance artist who graduated in Dance from Columbia University in New York and Human Rights at the Global Human Rights Campus in Venice. His projects explore the development of empathy in our society through dance, cinema and teaching. As a dancer and choreographer, Costa has worked in the field of sports and contemporary dance in Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Norway, Vietnam, Japan and the United States. He won the Lumiere Prize in Canada for his film WAITING FOR COLOR, a documentary dance film about violence against the LGBTI community in Chechnya, and his work has been covered by The Guardian, Elle, them, GLAAD and Free Europe.
Studio Karakashyan is a creative and production company specializing in dance, cinema and development of young artists. Through movement and skillful storytelling, the studio aims to develop empathy and human contact in our society.
The Man with a Hat Foundation aims to support, develop, produce and disseminate Bulgarian talent in the field of contemporary dance and dance cinema. Since its establishment in 2016, the Foundation has been producing young Bulgarian talent in these fields, creating more than 32 performances for stage and screen.
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