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OCR
440 Anelia Kassabova Visualizations of “Hooligans”. A Bulgarian Film of the 1960s On September 13, 1965 the film Valchitsata (‘The She-Wolf?)! was screened in Sofia. The subject of the film were the attitudes towards the Other— the “difficult”, the “bad and dangerous” youth. For the very first time the topic of a correctional boarding school, trudovo-vazpitatelno uchilishte (labor-educational school’, LES), for juvenile offenders became visualized in socialist Bulgaria. Although the critics noticed “shortcomings” and “weaknesses” of the film, the experts evaluated it as a high achievement of the Bulgarian cinema (Andreykov 1965: 41). Viewed by 1.27 million people (Yanakiev 2003: 299), the film was undoubtedly a success of its time. The critiques indicated the complicated fate of the film and its long road to realization. Less discussed in the 1960s, and nowadays, is the fact that the film was based on a “true story”.’ Scriptwriter Haim Oliver was inspired for the topic and the main characters by real facts, so the film led me to the prototypes. I shall consider the movie from a cultural-historical perspective that treats films not only from an aesthetic, artistic-creative point of view as visual and textual products but also from a social perspective. The interesting circumstances around the film allow it to be seen in the light of the complex interconnection between visual representation and social reality (Garbolevski 2011). From this perspective the article will offer insight into both the functioning of the complicated process of film making in socialist Bulgaria of the 1960s and the reality of an LES of the same period. With a view to complement the existing literature, the article is based primarily on archival documents to be found in the Bulgarian Agency State Archives: on the one hand, the minutes of the meetings of the artistic council and, on the other hand, archival materials of the prototype of the school in the film, LES Vranya Stena. The Long History of the Film Making The power of images—verbal and visual, static and moving—to transmit certain (political, ideological) messages is used by any government. Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes intensify the pressure on artists, tending to use art as an ' Script-writers Haim Oliver and Rangel Valchanov, director Rangel Valchanov, and operator Dimo Kolarov. : Words of scriptwriter Oliver at a meeting of the artistic council in 1964 (IsDA F. 404, op. 4, ae. 290: 59).
