The nominations are in, and as the pundits expected, this year’s Bulgars are likely to be dominated by The Dark Knight, Revolutionary Road, and The Curious Case of Boiko Borissov.

While certain productions expect a modicum of support, such as The Visitor starring President Georgi Purvanov reprising a role previously incarnated by Simeon Saxe-Coburg, as a political leader who pays periodic visits to Bulgaria between flitting around other capitals, it seems certain that Borissov is set to sweep all before him in 2009.

While Borissov created his own role, however narcissistic, in The Dark Knight, having turned down the lead in The Wrestler because he felt it would be stereotyping, audiences in Bulgaria have been astonished by the tale of The Curious Case of Boiko Borissov, in which the protagonist, who at first has the appearance of an adult, de-evolves into someone who burbles in infantile fashion about the bad material in Bulgarian society.

His performance may or may not affect the audience vote in this year’s production of reality epic, Who Wants to be Prime Minister?

Revolutionary Road, starring Volen Siderov as a charismatic ultra-right leader mesmerised by his own past, which he appears to believe to have been as a fighter against the Ottoman Empire, is well-known to have been hampered by difficulties including an ever-diminishing cast as Siderov’s parliamentary caucus dwindled. However Revolutionary Road does, Siderov has high hopes for a touring production through Bulgaria this year, understood to be a musical using a score by Wagner.

Frozen River has picked up a number of nominations, especially for Petar Dimitrov’s performance as an Economy and Energy Minister who slips up and does a pratfall every time he attempts to deliver a line involving either energy or the economy.

More of an art house production, the Bulgarian answer to Frost/Nixon, entitled Koritarov/Kevorkian, the story of two ageing axed talk show hosts who share a common background as State Security agents and appear once more to yell incomprehensibly at each other on someone else’s talk show, has attracted some curiosity, especially among those who read the text on which the story is based, entitled the Dossier Commission.

Slumdog Millionaire, the tale of a business person who rises from obscurity to affluence through a number of deals involving the construction industry, freelance trading in weaponry and pharmaceuticals, informal entertainment opportunities along with open-handed offers of personal protection, had been slammed by critics as straight-to-DVD material and its protagonist as straight-to-jail material. However, on the European circuit, it is known to have generated a lot of excitement in Brussels. Pundits put it up against The Wrestler in the contest for getting a lock on audiences.

Milk, the saga of Bulgarian food producers who substitute the contents of various products with other ingredients such as air, has attracted wide attention among the media and grabbed the interest of consumers. Writers drafting a sequel, which they hope will be as profitable as the first, are understood to be frustrated that their first planned working title, Like Water for Chocolate, had already been taken.