January (2021)
A surreal tale of five men stuck in a snowstorm at the edge of the world, JANUARY is inspired by Nobel Prize in Literature nominee Yordan Radichkov's play of the same name. The screenplay was written in collaboration with the film's director, Andrey Paounov.
The film premiered in competition at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2021, and has won a number of awards, including the Jury Award and the Critic's Guild Award at the Golden Rose Film Festival 2021, Best Director in the International Competition at Sofia IFF 2022, Best Supporting Actor and Costume Design at the Bulgarian Film Academy Awards 2022, and Best Director at The Golden Linden International Film Festival 2022.
The film was released theatrically in several territories across Europe, including Bulgaria and Luxembourg. In the UK it was released in cinemas and on VOD by Bulldog Film Distribution in January 2023. It is also available to stream on HBO Max in Bulgaria.
While in development, the project was selected for the EAVE Producers Workshop 2016, Torino Film Lab Script & Pitch Programme 2016, International Film Festival Rotterdam's CineMart 2017 and the Venice Gap-Financing Market 2018. It also won the Best Bulgarian Project Award at the Sofia Meetings Co-production Market 2017 and the Danny Lerner Award for project in development at the So Independent Film Festival 2017.
During postproduction, it screened at the First Cut Lab at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2019, Agora Works in Progress at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2019 and First Cut+ at KVIFF Eastern Promises 2020.
The film was made with support from the Bulgarian National Film Centre, Bulgarian National Television and Creative Europe's MEDIA programme.
What people said about the film...
"a first-class mystery-thriller"
- Mariana Hristova, Cineuropa
"Imagine if Bela Tarr remade The Thing and you’ll have some idea of what to expect here.
Which is to say: I’d bet that you’ll see nothing remotely like January the rest of the year."
- Colin Dibben, Close-Up Film
"Every scene simmer[s] with hidden meaning"
- Rob Aldam, Backseat Mafia
"Paounov maintains the movie’s intense fixity of mood, and the effect is arresting"
- Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
"beautiful and mysterious"
- Mark Kermode, Kermode and Mayo's Take
"a playful grim fairytale that disturbs the imagination more than the viscera
thanks to its evocation of haunted woods, barely seen,
that symbolise the depopulating nation's post-Soviet oblivion”
- Graham Fuller, The Arts Desk
"the atmospherics captivate"
- Jonathan Romney, Sight & Sound
"beautiful and unnervingly eerie in equal, equivocal measure"
- Anton Bitel, Little White Lies
"uses the arsenal of fiction and all its gorgeous artifice to get to the core of
a humanistic truth – there is no bigger mystery than man"
- Savina Petkova, We Love Cinema
"Shades of Bergman and Tarkovsky linger in a Bulgarian
mystery-drama that is a genuine work of art"
- Mansel Stimpson, Film Review Daily
"will doubtless reward multiple viewings"
- Christopher Machell, Cine-Vue