Snapshot

The manager: David Varod
The job: Chief executive director
The company: Nu Boyana Film Studios
In brief: Nu Boyana Film Studios was created at the end of 2006 after the privatisation of Boyana Films was completed. The US film companies NU Image, Millennium and First Look are the main shareholders in Nu Boyana Film Studios. The Bulgarian state also holds a five per cent stake. It has a representative on the board of directors and has stipulated that the firm must produce at least two Bulgarian films every year.

“I wanted to develop as an artist basically, but some of my friends were working on a film and they got stuck one day and needed somebody to get a set done for them,” Varod says.

This is how everything started. One of his good friends asked him to help produce the set for a film – Varod’s first. Enjoying and challenging as it was, afterwards his acquaintances “started chasing” him. “I found myself working more for the film industry than doing my private art. It is something that when you get into it, you don’t know how to get out of it,” Varod told The Sofia Echo on March 13 at his office in Nu Boyana Film Studios.

As it was not my first visit, I noticed that the main building – well known to all Bulgarians from the many local films conceived there – had been repainted in bright joyful yellow and white colours, with a US flag hanging above the main entrance. Later, I found out that it was part of the set for Direct Contact, a new film starring Dolph Lundgren.

Varod comes from Israel and started to work in the film industry in his homeland. He worked in all departments, but concentrated on the art side. He was a production designer for about 25 years, working as freelancer for many companies, including the giant Cannon. After he left Israel, he worked on projects around the globe. Finally he started working as designer for New World (now NU Image), at that time based in South Africa.

According to Varod, “everybody is influenced by certain people” in their life. He worked on many British productions and met many brilliant designers, including Richard McDonald whom he mentions as one of the greatest and a very good “teacher”.

Nu Boyana’s parent company is in Los Angeles, in the US. Varod is not involved with the big decisions that are taken there on what type and which movies will come to Bulgaria. “But on our side, Nu Boyana, we are developing a studio. I hope to make it a little bit different from other studios. I’m trying to make a studio that is more artistic because this is the background I come from,” Varod says.

His experience as producer has not always left him with fond memories of using other studios. Hence, for Varod, it is important to develop his own studio, somewhere he feels comfortable making films.

 “I am trying to create a much more friendly environment with bigger possibilities and bigger options for any company that comes to work here, including Bulgarian companies. International stuff is what I call more easy stuff because they have money, they have abilities and possibilities. It is easy to deal with them. It is more difficult to deal with companies who don’t have enough. And for the more than a year that I have been in Boyana, I think the film industry in Bulgaria, the Government and the people have come to understand that all my promises are kept and we are providing a lot more than we pledged,” he says.

Varod sees the local film industry as home as he has been in Bulgaria for more than 10 years. “I think we are creating possibilities that are a minimum of 50 per cent higher than what this institute (former Boyana Film Studio) was providing before,” he says.
Many Bulgarian productions are currently using Nu Boyana studios and the company is trying to start joint ventures with some of the productions that they believe in.

In 2007 Nu Boyana co-produced a film with the famous young Bulgarian director Zornitsa Sofia. “Personally, I believe in young directors and I am always trying to make deals with young people because cinema changes, like anything in the world. I think to make a movie that really talks to the audience, you need to work with young directors,” Varod says.

Varod picked most of Nu Boyana's new employees. “I have a feeling for people, I am open to people. Character is very important to me because here it is very quiet, not like other places, it is very comfortable, very relaxing. We have stress because of the amount of work that we have, but we run it as a family, we run it with friendship, in a nice atmosphere and this is very important to me. I cannot accept somebody who is aggressive,” Varod says, referring to the trait he likes least in people.

“This influences the movies because even the actors who came here, big actors like Morgan Freeman, said: ‘This is an unbelievable environment to work in, you are so relaxed on a set, it is quiet, the people are nice and polite’,” Varod says. He was more than happy to work here and, according to him, all the actors who come to work in Bulgaria are happy as well.

Nu Boyana has developed its own school for all the positions occupied by their crew. Most of the people, who currently work for the company, have been involved with Varod’s productions for about nine to 10 years and, in his opinion, are very professional. His line producers are Bulgarian, about 30-years-old. All the time Nu Boyana trains and works with students from National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA) in Sofia.

“When I spoke to the students they did not understand why I was promising to support the university, and I explained to them that by supporting the university I am supporting myself,” Varod says. He said Nu Boyana finances all NATFA students projects.

“But again, this is part of my investment because I am investing in students and from these students will come my new directors, photographers, electricians and others at every level. This studio is growing. Today, we have about 700 people involved with us. There are about 400 permanent staff and another 300 freelancers take part in all our projects throughout the year, but this is growing every month. Next year there will probably be 1500 people working here,” he says. However, even though Nu Boyana financially supports the students, they are free to choose whether to work with the film studio after they graduate.

However, the investment seems to be paying off. Most of the professionals at Nu Boyana are from Sofia NATFA, with a few from Serbia. When a foreign film expert comes to work in Bulgaria for some time, Varod always organises for a group to be taught by the expert while they are in Bulgaria. There is also a school for computer-generated images at Nu Boyana; about 400 computer graphic specialists work there.

Nu Boyana provides a service and “as a service provider the doors are supposed to be open to everyone,” Varod says. “This was my main message because in the beginning there were concerns in the local industry. They were afraid that I would close the doors and do only Nu Image and American movies. No, the doors are open wide and more than that, even though I have had certain disagreements and certain arguments with the previous board of Boyana (Films), […] I told them: guys, in principle the door is open for everyone including yourselves, including Evgeni Mihailov.”

According to Varod, for anybody who wants to make a film, Nu Boyana is the place.

The favourite part of his job is when the project is finished and the studio receives good feedback from the director, actors or others involved. Actors, who have worked here, have said to him: “David, this is Hollywood”, which for Varod is important.

Competition is a healthy thing, says Varod, because it “makes you better”. “If you want to sit down and lay back and say 'I’m the biggest, I’m the best', it is wrong. When there is competition, you have to be on your toes all the time, all the time you have to be aware of what’s happening and try to get better and better.”

In the case of Nu Boyana, the competition comes from other similar film studios in neighbouring countries. It is mainly from Romania, where the conditions and the prices are the nearest to those in Bulgaria. “But I am trying to build a studio that will be better than Romania in every way and I believe I can. That does not mean that I cannot co-operate with Romanian studios,” Varod says.

Currently Varod is trying to promote an idea for a favourable tax position for film production where the state repays the producer 20 per cent of the film’s cost after it is completed. This would make Bulgaria a more attractive place for investors (in this case the producers) to make a film. And as a result it would be good for Bulgaria to have films made in the country.

“This could bring a lot of money to the country,” Varod says. He explains that Hungary has already adopted this practice. It has become a preferred destination for the film industry over, for example, the Czech Republic, which was the leader in the region with a long history of film production. This practice will also soon be adopted in the Czech Republic.

The last major film Nu Boyana made was The Code with Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas. Since then they have also become involved with two smaller American movies, The Prince in Me and Direct Contact, which is currently being shot.

“Next is a movie called Ninja, a martial arts movie,” Varod says. The studio is attracting other big movie and big stars to Bulgaria. There are two films involving Scarlett Johansson in the pipeline, but Varod doesn’t want to promote them at this early stage.

“My main issue now is developing the studio, so we are building New York outside,” Varod says referring to the set of New York streets currently being constructed on site. The company is also planning to start building new pavilions in about a month.

“We are trying to do something, of course it is very good for us as a business, but it is very good for Bulgaria. I’ve been told in the past by the king (Simeon Saxe Coburg) that ‘maybe you are the best ambassador that we have’ by putting Bulgaria on the world map for filmmaking. It is not a small thing because it attracts all the media,” Varod says.

Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov is also delighted that Nu Boyana is here. “He said to me: ‘For me it is prestigious that we have this type of company. It is very good for Sofia what you do and for Bulgaria as a country.’” According to Varod the firm is doing something unique in Bulgaria and he believes at some point everybody in the country will be proud of them.

However, Varod never has enough time for his hobbies as he calls himself a “workaholic”, working seven days a week all year round. He sometimes takes two days off to visit his parents or children in Israel. However, when he has a little bit of spare time Varod likes to paint, but this usually happens late at night.

“For me it is like meditating. Nothing relaxes me more than to sit for two hours and paint,” Varod says. He likes to paint portraits but not traditional images. He paints the faces in an unusual way, with many colours.

Varod wakes at 4am every morning and does at least half an hour of exercise. When he arrived in Bulgaria, Varod used to play soccer but a damaged back has put a stop to that.

His friends include other people from the arts sector – filmmakers, actors and others.

And Varod’s youngest daughter Shelly, 30, recently moved to Bulgaria and now lives with her father. For Varod she is his soul mate. She is into acting and sometimes takes part in Varod’s productions but now is studying psychology. Varod is very happy, as he did not see his daughter for three years while she was in the US. His other two children live in Israel.