Jordan Detev: The Virgin Panimnitos
Title:
- The Virgin Panimnitos
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Artist Statement:
My film is based upon historical sources from Bulgarian art. I have drawn upon the pure, traditional art of my country, expressed in thousands of icons created over the centuries. Their Biblical content has been developed into a direct participant in the action of the film. The script concerns the destiny of a motherless child. Its subject is the birth of a child, as seen through the eyes of one person. It seeks to convey very specific emotions, without personal sensation. In this way, the film functions as a testament – father to son, artist to public. In creating the film, I have also drawn on the methods of psychodrama. My appearance in the role of Madonna shows that a man can also love a child very much. The moment of physical death is fused with the role of the Savior – but with a notebook in his arms rather than the Bible, the book of traditional knowledge. In that way the films accent is on the human problems of a new world and change accomplished by reaching for knowledge and wisdom. As the text of the final song says, “When you are in a blind alley Beaten down, boxed in by four walls. Make your own new way from all the cut-off paths. Be on the move again”.
