Turkish director Yavus Turgul's Eskyia (The Bandit) - a Ffr9 (US$1.6) million Turkish-French-Bulgarian co-production, with Ffr900,000 (US$160,000) from Eurimages - has domestically exceeded one million admissions after two months in release, to become the all-time top-grossing feature in Turkey, according to md Pavlina Jeleva, of Bulgaria's Geopoly, which made the film with Turkey's Filma Cass and France's Artcam Production.
Eskyia follows a Turkish villageman, liberated from jail in Anadola after serving an unjust sentence, who seeks revenge from the criminal who framed him and stole his fiancée. Per Jeleva, the first film collaboration between Turkey and Bulgaria is 'in the vein of Yilmaz Güney (Yol), and this could be the reason for the huge box office attraction.'
A former executive of Bulgaria's National Film Centre, Jeleva set up Geopoly a year ago to develop European co-productions, and integrate Bulgarian location and studio facilities - especially Sofia's Boyana Studios - in international ventures. Its first outing was Czech director Zdenek Smytach's Lotrando i Zubeida (Lotrando and Zubeida), a Czech-French-Bulgarian co-production.
As well as the fact that the local currency - the lev - has been strongly inflated, jumping from 70 to 3,000 to the US dollar within a couple of months, Jeleva emphasised that the varied locations, advanced technical equipment and qualified staff have been used by, among others, US producer Roger Corman. Jørn Rossing Jensen
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