The aim of the project is to trace the history of female characters in Bulgarian cinema, through the eyes of our contemporaries, to review the social problems that these characters reflect or criticize and the role models they promote. This historical, social, and visual analysis of these images of women also aims to create continuity between generations of women and their struggles for self-realization and happiness. In focus is the construction of new political and sociocultural identities along with political and social changes in society. The project also aims to raise the issue of regression in some areas of women’s emancipation in Bulgaria, which is increasingly felt after the mid-1990s. Analyses reveal the increasingly aggressive and reactionary creation of “new” female characters that serve conservative ideologies and are becoming more popular today. Last but not least, the project repeats the thesis that women’s rights are not a given, but have been achieved by other women and men. Images presented in the film are very popular and formative for the audience’s minds, therefore their analysis can show in detail specific political and social phenomena of the time in which these images appeared.

I dedicate the exhibition to my father Dimitar.

Commissioned by Bulgarian Fund for Women. Curator: Stefka Tsaneva.

The first stage of this project was shown in 2020 at the collective exhibition “Everything is fine” an exhibition dedicated to women issues in Bulgaria.