Born in Svilengrad in 1923 and dying in Sofia in 2011, Binka Zhelyazkova was the first Bulgarian woman to direct a feature film, and often worked with her husband, the screenwriter Hristo Ganev. Her films criticised the Communist regime and four of her nine films were banned until after it ended. Life Flows Quietly By... (1957) was shelved for thirty years. We Were Young (1961) won the Golden Prize at the Moscow festival. The Attached Balloon (1967), a stylised film of a village and a balloon, played at Expo 67 in Montreal and was banned afterwards. The Last Word (1973) competed at Cannes. Her style has been compared to Fellini and Tarkovsky.
Filmography
- We Were Young (1961)
- The Attached Balloon (1967)
- The Last Word (1973)