Best Friends Forever - Interview with the director cathy kostova

Yellow Things Next to me stands Cathy Kostova, who is going to tell us a little bit about her project. Hello! Hello! The film is called "Best Friends Forever". It is 17 minutes. I directed and produced this film. It was shot in London with English actors, screenplay and dialogue. The story is about two best friends. The girl, whose name is Nat, is looking for a date for the 14th of February. One week before St. Valentine's she doesn't have a boyfriend and this is a big issue. For a girl of around 30 it's a painful subject. Her best friend Mike offers to help her find a boyfriend for the big day. Mike organizes a speed-dating event for her. He sets up a meeting between her and several guys. Each has about 5-6 minutes to impress her. But this turns out to be a big disaster. Next Mike and Nat go out in the street to look for Nat's perfect man. They create themselves a little adventure on that mission. And the whole experience makes them look at each other in a different way. I think a lot of people have asked themselves when it comes to friendship between a boy and a girl, if it's only friendship or if there can be more and if it would be better to stick to friendship or cross the border to something more. Some fear that if a romantic relationship fails, the experience will jeopardise the friendship. All in all, these are the questions that I'm asking with this film. The plot of this film, is it completely your idea or did someone help you for the script? The idea is his and the screenplay is written by Alasdair Mackay, a British writer who I met in London. We slightly changed it a little bit for production reasons. For example we had a scene in a Zoo but couldn't arrange that so we shot in a dinosaur park. That affected the dialogue... However the main idea and most of the dialogue are written by Alasdair, i.e. the script is his and then every time you film you change a little bit, it happens, but the credit for the idea and screenplay go to Alasdair Mackay. You work and create in London. How did you decide to make this move and why aren't you doing the same thing but in Bulgaria? I don't know if I should call it I immigrated outside of Bulgaria, since I go back 3-4 times a year for different holidays. But I moved away 5 years ago, initially I went to Paris for professional reasons. But I moved away 5 years ago, initially I went to Paris for professional reasons. In this industry, on my level, I still need a day job, so I do have another career in addition to filmmaking. For that reason I moved to Paris 5 years ago. After working in the IT industry in fact, for a few years, I realized I wouldn't be happy unless I did something more creative. So I started taking some classes in Paris. But I felt that the film industry in France is a lot more closed in than the British one. I had taken some classes in the UK as well - to learn but also to meet some people and understand how it works there. I found that the film community is a little bit more open to new people, so I decided to move to the UK. And why not in Bulgaria? Because, as a matter of fact I have almost no connections in the Bulgarian film industry. I haven't been living there full time for the past 5 years and I haven't had the opportunity to make good connections to be able to film there. Maybe one day if a door opens... Here, as a matter of fact, I met a lot of filmmakers who work in Bulgaria, in the Balkan Pavilion - there's a lovely atmosphere there by the way. I will keep in touch with those people and if an opportunity comes to film in Bulgaria, I'd love that. But so far, I don't have professional contacts with whom I would be able to work there, since I haven't lived in Bulgaria in the last years. Is that your first participation in the Cannes Festival and how did it happen that your film is a part of the short film programme? There are several short film competitions in Cannes and apart from that, there's a section called 'The Short Film Corner'. You can register your film there. Two years ago I participated with another one of my films, that one I shot in Paris, when I was living there. But this film wasn't in the competition, unfortunately. This year, I decided to try again with this film for the official competition, and again... The competition is very strict and renowned. If I had been accepted it would have been a total dream come true. But the Short Film Corner allows young people who haven't been doing this for a long time, to present their short films and have an accreditation for the festival. And this way, they can meet new people and pursue their career. So thanks to this short film and the one I presented two years ago, I was able to come to the festival, to meet different people and to be inspired from how the big ones create art. The screening for your film was yesterday. What feedback did you get? I got different feedback. We got some laughter! The film is a romantic comedy; I forgot to say, so laughter is welcome! My heart got warmer when I heard people laughing at different moments. But since the story speaks to many people, and each person seems to want a different ending and everyone likes different moments from the film. For example, I just got an email from someone who was at the screening, and he wanted the film to end at minute 12 because then it looks like they would end up together. But the film continues. At the end of day, my goal here was to direct a film someone else had written, to tell the story written by someone else in the best way I can. Let's share some details about the actors in the film, how did you choose them, did you have a casting? Yes. I produced this project in the most professional way I know. After I received the final version of the screenplay, actually the screenwriter is also an actor; this is one of his passions, so he was also the casting director. Together we organized the casting session in London. We did that between Christmas and New Year's which made it harder to find a room and people, but we did it. We had two days. First we cast Mike, then Nat. Mike is played by Conner Mckenzy, Nat is Hester Ruoff. Both are from London. I insisted that they both have a London accent, so that it's the most understandable from all the different English accents. There are so many in England. First we chose the role of Mike because we found that to be more complicated. Then we chose the Nats. We had a call back. We gathered how many... 3 boys and 4 girls and asked them to read together in order to see the chemistry in each couple, 12 couples in total. Because we're talking about best friends here and we needed to see which couple of actors who don't actually know each other can look like they are best friends in front of the camera. The chemistry is very important for this film. Many artists get inspiration from their own experiences. Have you had a similar experience? I feel like everyone, more or less has had a similar experience. Yes, I've lived something like this. I think it ended up similarly to my characters. Let's give an answer to the most important question do they get together in the end? In the end they stay friends. Which is also a happy end! Because a lot of people fear that if they cross this... if they try to get together with their best friend and this will destroy the friendship if something bad happens and they break up and that means ending their friendship. But in this story the friendship wins. They try to get together, it doesn't work out but they manage to keep their friendship because they find it's precious and that's a happy end for me. My opinion is that we shouldn't be scared to look for love close to us. Because how amazing would it be if the person next to us is our best friend for life. That's for me the dream. Me too, I've been scared to cross the line so that I don't break the friendship. If the friendship is strong enough and important enough for both people, it will survive no matter what. And in the best case it means you'll fall in love with your best friend. What's better than that? Truly, what's better than that! Thank you very much, and I wish you to continue investing yourself in your projects as much! I hope we meet again, if not at the Cannes Festival, maybe in London or in Bulgaria, when you're back. I'm very happy that I met you too. Thank you very much. I hope the public enjoys the film. All best to you! We'll see each other. I'm planning to send the film to the Sofia Film Fest as well, and I hope it will be accepted.