DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHY - Ralitza Petrova

Ralitza Petrova is a Bulgaria-born filmmaker, living and working across Europe. Her filmmaking explores themes of identity, legacy, and the underscoring moral tensions that constitute them, with a focus on characters in personal crisis. At the core of her artistic approach lies a commitment to formal minimalism, where the narrative and the visual excess are reduced, in an aim to capture the raw essence of the human experience. Ralitza studied film and video art at University of the Arts London, and later fiction directing at the UK’s National Film and Television School (NFTS). Her short films have won wide acclaim on the festival circuit, including Cannes, Berlin, Locarno, and Toronto. In 2016, her feature debut GODLESS premiered at Locarno Film Festival, where it won the Golden Leopard for Best Film, followed by further 27 awards, including nomination for European Discovery 2017–Prix FIPRESCI by the European Film Academy. Her sophomore feature LUST, a Bulgarian-Danish- Swedish coproduction, supported by the Bulgarian National Film Centre, The Danish Film Institute, Film I Vast (Sweden), and Eurimages, is currently in post-production in Copenhagen, Denmark. During her time at Siena she will focus on the development of her third feature—an interrogation of the cost of privilege, and trauma’s role in shaping personal and collective identity.