The film was released in 2022, when Petya Dubarova, a Bulgarian poet born in Burgas, could have been 60 had she not taken her own life at only 17.

The screenwriters Nelly Dimitrova and Valentina Angelova and the director Alexander Kossev want to acknowledge the loss and emptiness Dubarova’s death left in Bulgarian literary history. They choose to do so by telling the tale of a modern-day 17-year-old Petya, who’s also torn between writing, rioting, and dying.

“Petya na moyata Petya” (“Petya of My Petya”) is an ambitious cinema creation that infects us with its anxiety and high demands, its thirst for meaning and determination. Today’s Petya is open-hearted and uncompromising. She yearns to give her and her classmates’ daily lives the boldness of talent and youth, which often leads to a head-on collision with reality. Her selflessness only makes her conflict with the world reach a breaking point.

An equivalent of this modern Petya could be found in every class of the famous English High School in Burgas, says one of her teachers. The heroine isn’t idealized at all, yet gradually grows soft on us. She’s so daring in her youthful flight that she misses the disintegration of her parents’ marriage; so enraptured by the torments of her poetic soul, she barely notices the signs of love around her. Petya throws herself into a battle with the new school principal to help a classmate. In her blind rage, she even accuses her favourite teacher of betrayal and thus remains oblivious to her personal drama. The 17-year-old girl is strong, devoted to the urge to do something more important and substantial in life—something everyone desperately needs but doesn’t realise it. Once we enter the artificially presented world of eleventh graders, the movie spins us into the vortex of a fate challenging our own perceptions of conscience, honour, and willingness to compromise.

The awkward trailer may mislead you. It looks like a sample of the clichés and mishaps in the movie, bringing almost all its defects upfront. In fact, the story of the two namesakes has plenty of assets. The modern Petya (Aleksandra Kostova) doesn’t want to be good and fair, to quote a famous poem by Dubarova; she sees this as surrender. So, she finds a worthy opponent in the face of the poet herself, played by Alissa Atanassova. The film is intercut with imaginary meetings between the two girls. The scenes taking place at the seashore are filled with relentless honesty. The interactions at home or at school lack that same candour. Dubarova is sarcastic, catty, and blatant, even more so than her contemporary version. The poet doesn’t shower her namesake with compliments—neither for her writing nor for her behaviour. Petya Monova, in turn, and probably with reason, argues that, had she not died willingly at 17, Dubarova would have become a dull, ordinary woman with no talent or substance. Both girls engage in an honest exchange and turn their past and present into a ball of things that remain unspoken, unconfessed, and uncovered. Albena Pavlova, who plays the favourite teacher, also delivers a strong performance. Her story, without being forced, carries the tragedy of a third Petya, nearing her sixties, who has lost her bravery and lust for life but succeeds in restoring them.

And the best part? Rather than a story of two possible suicides, “Petya of My Petya” is vivacious, good and fair—fair to the fairness in ourselves. It got praised by the audience, and deservingly so.

Материалът е изготвен
с финансовата подкрепа
на Националния фонд „Култура”.