Red Moon is a poetic meditation on the ancient ritual of fire dancing in Bulgaria. Weaving artisanal, handmade techniques and performative gestures, the film blurs past and present to evoke ghosts in the landscape, the spirits of ancestors unearthed by the throbbing pulsations of live music. All images and sounds are recorded during Zheravna Festival of Costume in Bulgaria, where thousands of people gather each summer to perform traditional dances under a full moon.

 

CREDITS
Camera & hand-processing: Erin Weisgerber & Ralitsa Doncheva
Edit: Ralitsa Doncheva
Sound: Gorazd Popov
Production Assistance: Eva Rasheva
Made with assistance from The Canada Council of the Arts

 

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Ralitsa Doncheva is a Bulgarian artist - filmmaker based in Tio’tia:ke/ Montréal.

Drawing on experimental analogue film traditions and intuitive, poetic approaches, her Balkan heritage and mythology, her films evoke shimmering worlds on the verge of disappearance. Between 2013-2018, Ralitsa created a series of short films and writings using archives and images from Eastern Europe. The final project (almost) impossible worlds was exhibited at the Dazibao gallery and later presented as a performative lecture during the 2022 Experimental Cinema Symposium at the Cinémathèque Québécoise.

Her films and video installations have screened internationally in festivals, galleries and micro-cinemas. In 2016 she received The Eileen Maitland Award at the 54th Ann Arbor Film Festival for her film, Baba Dana Talks To The Wolves. Her recent project Desert Islands, shot with her father, screened at the Festival de Nouveau Cinema and at the Images Film Festival in Toronto among other festivals.

Ralitsa is ardently involved in local film and artistic communities, where she contributes as a director and editor. Her recent collaborations have been shown in galleries and museums such as the Musée d'Art Contemporain de Montréal and the Canadian Centre for Architecture.