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"Unbeschreiblich weiblich"

an experimental documentary video by Dimitrina Sevova

“Unbeschreiblich weiblich” premiered in May 2007 at the Lost & Found exhibition at Shedhalle, Zürich, curated by Alice Cantaluppi, Isabel Reiss, Anna Voswinckel, as part of an installation consisting of the documentary film itself (75 min) with interviews, photographs from the artist’s personal archive, objects and text.

Dimitrina Sevova’s experimental documentary video “Unbeschreiblich weiblich” is dedicated to the reflection on how women and other characters in the alternative local scene in Sofia, Bulgaria, deal with pop culture. The focus of Sevova’s considerations and reflections is the role of music, a traditionally male coded territory. The positions of several generations are superposed and questioned as to their ideal and stylistic values, and their respective differences and common grounds. How has music changed desires and identities as they were moving from non-Western to gradually more Western? How are (gender) roles distributed stereotypically, and how can alternative practices and music break them up, and create difference and utopias? “Unbeschreiblich weiblich” is based on recent video interviews with activists of the alternative music and art scene shortly after the lifting of the Iron Curtain, as well as from the current scene, and on contemporary documents and videos of the early 1990s, which constitute at the same time a time travel of the artist in her own past.

Unbeschreiblich weiblich *

(DVD, 75’; 2007)

A movie by Dimitrina Sevova
Commissioned by Isabel Reiss, Anna Voswinckel, Alice Cantaluppi and Shedhalle
Any resemblence to actual persons is in no way fictitious. Each protagonist is playing one of their own roles, with the exception of excerpts from feature films and music clips. The movie does not claim to present a complete picture of a scene, but rather offers fragments and leads.
The movie, produced by code flow, follows a trip of the artist to Sofia in February 2007, and meetings with many friends lost & found.

The documentary film Unbeschreiblich weiblich features exclusive interviews with (in order of appearance):

Dimitar "Mitko" Jaranov: artist and party scene activist

Nova Generacia: Bulgarian New Wave band since 1987

Ventsislav Zankov: artist, theorist, media activist and publisher of the 39 grama magazine, founder of the [elektrik_bg] mailing list

Diana Popova: art critic, writer and freelance curator

Emil Valev: artist, composer, frontman of the Bulgarian New Wave band “Violetov General”

Leda Ekimova: artist and art producer, founder of Eskimo, alternative platform for art, performance and music (named after the only ice cream available during Socialist times: Eskimo), and co-founder of the alternative space for young art and action “Pistolet”

Andronia "Roni" Popova: singer, performer and composer, member of Nassekomix, performs with a variety of bands and musicians

Donna "Elfy" Dee: London-based star DJ and music producer

Desislava "Desy" Andonova: singer and DJ, member of Phuture Shock, Desi-re and other formations

Georgi “Zhoro” Ruzhev: artist, musician and political activist, ex-frontman of the Bulgarian punk band “Poparata na buhala” (The Owl’s Milk-Sop), current experimental electronic music and vision project “Dummy Corps”

Adelina Popnedeleva: artist and cultural activist

Miro aka DJ Mad Bear

Patricia “Elia” Vassileva: athlete, advertizing face for Reebok in Bulgaria, lesbian activist, writer, TV and radio host, choreographer and many other things, initiator of the bg-lesbian.com website

Boris Kostadinov: art critic, writer, curator, editor-in-chief of the magazine for urban culture and lifestyle “Intro”

Yoanna “Yoko” Paspalanova: rapper and singer, sound engineer

* The title is borrowed from Nina Hagen’s 1978 music track Unbeschreiblich Weiblich.