Deyan Bararev, director of Botev is an Idiot, altcineAction! 2014 Best Editing Award, talks to us about his feelings reading the Jury’s argumentation, how to improve the public voting system, the first time he heard of altcineAction! and the Balkan context his film carries.

Best Editing Award Jury –Giorgos Mavropsaridis (Greece), Aleksandra Milovanovic (Serbia), Dimitris Athanitis (Greece)- agreed to award Botev is an Idiot “for its pace and rythm of camera movement and the maitrise of his framing.”

The filmmaker will be awarded with an Avid Media Composer 7 and Pro Tools 11 software, courtesy of Avid/Telmaco S.A. (Greece).

Giorgos Mavropsaridis (member of the jury) and Giannis Nikolakopoulos on behalf of Avid/Telmaco

Jury member, Dimitris Athanitis

How do you feel about this award?

Surprised. Really surprised. I didn’t expect any award but when I read the jury’s argumentation I felt very proud and humble. It goes without saying that this
award is for the whole crew of the film. We, as a team made this happen.

Tell us what do you plan to do with this software?

I plan to get acquainted with it as soon as I lay my hands on it.

What do you think about the public voting and reviews? How can we improve this procedure?

I think it’s good that people can vote directly on which films get to win but there’s always this sense that it all comes down to who manages to mobilize friends, relatives and people he/she knows best. I don’t know how the procedure can be improved. Maybe if the films rating are made up of the jury’s and public’s votes, not just the public, a dual system.

What’s you opinion if we allow the writing of comments all around the year?

Do it. You’ll get a better sense of which films are actually interesting.

How did you learn about altcineAction! 2014 online Balkan short film festival?

Well, I heard about altcineAction! from Balkans Beyond Borders short film festival.

What were your expectations and why you have sent your film to us?

I found it very interesting to see if Botev is an Idiot would be interesting in an online film festival, especially a Balkan one, because it carries a lot of Balkan context in itself. In Bulgaria it has become very popular with 132.000 views on YouTube.