MACEDONIA/BULGARIA: The new Macedonian film "Third Half" outrages Bulgarian politicians and historians who say it depicts the Bulgarians as fascists

Record ID: 774722

  • Title: MACEDONIA/BULGARIA: The new Macedonian film "Third Half" outrages Bulgarian politicians and historians who say it depicts the Bulgarians as fascists
  • Date: 9th November 2011
  • Summary: SKOPJE, MACEDONIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) MOVIE DIRECTOR, DARKO MITREVSKI, WALKING ALONG BRIDGE OVER RIVER VARDAR (SOUNDBITE) (Macedonian) MOVIE DIRECTOR, DARKO MITREVSKI, SAYING: "Their remarks (referring to complaints by Bulgarian members of EU parliament) are based on a couple of photos seen on Internet and on my interview where I said that the movie was about a time when Macedonia was occupied by the Bulgarian fascist regime, and it also describes the deportation of 7,200 Macedonian Jews to the concentration camp in Lubljanka by the Bulgarian police and army."
  • Embargoed: 24th November 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of, Bulgaria
  • City:
  • Country: Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Bulgaria
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA7YX170TLC7TFRAAC4GOLT2N31
  • Story Text: The new Macedonian film "Third half" has caused a rift between Macedonia and Bulgaria after Bulgarian politicians and historians complained that it depicts the Bulgarians as fascists.
    Based on a true story, the film is being made in Macedonia as a lavishly funded international production. It tells the story of 1942 football match played between two teams of the Bulgarian football league - Levksi and Makedonia. The latter, under the leadership of the Jewish coach, manages to become a champion of the soccer league at a time when the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was occupied by Bulgaria.
    The film sponsored by the Macedonian government, angered Bulgarian members of the European parliament who demanded to change the script, saying that it depicts the Bulgarians as fascists, plotting to kill the Jewish coach of the "Macedonia" team. MEPs Evgeni Kirilov, Andrey Kovachev and Stanimir Ilchev called the movie, sponsored by the Macedonian government, insulting and said it contained historical manipulations and represented Bulgaria as responsible for the deportation of thousands of Jews from Macedonia to Nazi death camps during World War II.
    The three MEPs asked for a suspension of sponsorship or a change in the script.
    The government of Macedonia declared the movie to be of national interest and granted one million euros for its production. Macedonia's Jewish Community and its Holocaust Fund also made contributions.
    The Macedonian director of the movie, Darko Mitrevski, said that he was surprised by the reaction from the Bulgarian MEPs, because so far, only couple of photos have been released.
    "Their remarks (referring to complaints by Bulgarian MEPs) are based on a couple of photos seen on Internet and on my interview where I said that the movie was about a time when Macedonia was occupied by the Bulgarian fascist regime, and it also describes the deportation of 7,200 Macedonian Jews to the concentration camp in Lubljanka by the Bulgarian police and army," Mitrevski told Reuters.
    He says the reaction of Bulgarian politicians and historians to his film can be viewed as the denial of the Holocaust.
    "This (the complaints) is the denial of the Holocaust, which their state (Bulgaria) did here in 1943. The Holocaust denial is a punishable criminal offence in 16 European states, unfortunately it's not in Bulgaria. So here is in short my comment about this: the "Third half" is an anti-Bulgarian movie as much as "Schindler's List" is anti-German," Mitrevski said.
    But Bulgarian historian Bozhidar Dimitrov disagrees.
    "The movie "Third Half" is a part of the efforts of the present government in Skopje to build up a Macedonian national identity," said Dimitrov, the director of the National Museum of History in Sofia. "Why this is necessary in the 21st century when the national identities of all European nations are based on centuries of history is beyond my understanding," he said. "The present-day Macedonian nation has been created back in 1944 by a decision of the Communist International after the Communist Party came to power in Yugoslavia. There is a variety of efforts from building monuments to creating a biased and fake history. The movie belongs to the last category - faked history,"
    he told Reuters.
    Dimitrov also said that the Macedonian Jews have not been deported to death camps by the Bulgarian authorities, saying if that was the case "then all 50,000 Bulgarian Jews would have been deported too which did not happen, because they were Bulgarian citizens."
    "Unfortunately in 1941 Germany did not allow the Macedonian Jews - around 11,000 people - to get the Bulgarian citizenship and the Bulgarian government at the time was forced to comply with that. These Macedonian Jews were deported to German camps by the Germans," Dimitrov added.
    The movie will be released in spring 2012.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register