Itzhak Finzi will received the Sofia Municipality Award for his contribution to the art of filmmaking
“The Hare Census” and “Vera” were showed in his honor at the Sofia Film Festival
The immensely talented Itzhak Finzi is an energetic, euphoric and leathery man - one of the pillars of actors mystery. He is like a walking metaphor of the Artist: embodying roles, and playing, and conducting and directing, and simply telling stories, he manages to generously splash color even amongst the most impenetrable grayness around. Whether in Sofia, Budapest or New York, the born adventurer Itzhak Finzi is always looking for the Miracle, while playing. Without fatigue.
Itzhak Finzi is born on the 23 of April 1933. He graduated acting in VITIZ (known now as The National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts) in 1955, along with a whole pleiad of future celebrities like Gregory Vachkov, Tatiana Lolova, Nikola Anastasov, Dosyu Dosev, Emilia Radeva, Hindo Kassimov, Yuri Yakovlev and others.
He is a strange codger, never aged child, tireless Curious, an actor with dozens of memorable roles in films and theater, violinist and author of documentaries, the author of a book of memoirs with the odd long title - "Motorcycle. Romulus the Great. Patsy. Then again - in Sao Paulo. What am I for Peter Brook? Bobo and Other Stories." Itzhak Finzi is a man of diverse interests and talents, who is always ready for new challenges...
He stands on camera for the first time in 1957 – plays a Jew boy who engirdled his own camp with barbed wire. Amongst his best films are: "The Hare Census" (1973), "Villa Zone" (1975), "A Cricket in the Ear" (1976), "Belated Full Moon" (1996), "Stolen Eyes" (2005)... He is awarded with the medal "Stara Planina" I-st degree and is an Honorary citizen of Sofia.
"The Hare Census" (1973) directed by Edward Zahariev and "Vera" - a joint project of Itzhak Finzi and Elizaveta Boeva (director, cinematographer and screenwriter of the film) are works that Sofia International Film Festival will present to celebrate the delightful actor.
The Bulgarian satiric comedy “The Hare Census” by the director Eduard Zahariev and screenplay by Georgi Mishev is aimed against the bureaucratic, pseudo patriotic expressions of people in modern life. Atanas Svilenov (cinema critic) determined the film as one of the ten best Bulgarian movies ever – a true revolution of its time. The catchwords "Nice land, nice people" became one of the most popular and iconic in Bulgarian cinematic reality.
The plot is about the statistician clerk Asenov, played by Itzhak Fintzi, who comes to the village of Yugla with an absurd task “from above” to make the census of the hares in the village settlement. All of the fit local men must be mobilized in this initiative. Soon after the census ends without a single rabbit signed in statistic. However, this is not an obstacle for the scrutineers to celebrate "the completed task" noisy with lots of wine and brandy.
The film novel "Vera" was awarded the "Golden Vityaz” at the Film Festival in Omsk, where he overcome the competition in the "Student and debut films" section.
“The whole story develops in one day, when the main character receives a letter from Vera, which informs him of her arrival. The approach is a bit of a detective style – it is not clear whether she will arrive or not, who is she, does she really exists…We all wait for Vera to appear”, Elizaveta Boeva explains her idea. Besides Itzhak Finzi’s main character, main roles in the film are given to places, singled as the cradle of worlds culture, such as Paris and Florence. “Vera" was an experiment to us. It is unusual as a story and visuals, we knew what we wanted to do, but we weren’t sure what will happen and how the audience will accept it." - says the author.
Congratulations for the Sofia Municipality Award!