Stefan Valdobrev

Stefan Kostadinov Valdobrev (; born 20 May 1970) is a Bulgarian actor, film and theatre composer, singer-songwriter and filmmaker. He received classical training at the National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia.

Valdobrev rose to prominence in the early 1990s, mainly with his hit songs, which made him extremely popular and gained him idol status in the Bulgarian music scene, twice being awarded as best male artist at the National Music Television ceremonies. Despite that he never quit his acting career and took part in numerous performances which have spanned a wide variety of genres from classical to contemporary drama, and from popular comedies to alternative, non-commercial projects, all staged by the most prominent Bulgarian directors on the most significant theatre stages. At that time Valdobrev gradually entered the world of film and theatre music and since 1992 has gone on to enjoy composing the original scores for more than 70 stage performances and 20 feature and documentary movies, winning many plaudits and awards for his work. In 2000 he received the Golden Rose film award for debut for the Dog's Home original movie soundtrack featuring Arabel Karajan. In 2008 he composed the music for Stefan Komandarev's highly acclaimed film The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner, a Bulgarian-German co-production with Miki Manojlovic in the lead role, which won a considerable number of international awards and reached the Short List of The Academy Awards 2010 for Foreign Language film.

Although Valdobrev continued performing in theatre (Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, Muller's Hamletmachine, Anouilh's Eurydice), he gradually moved away from this area, and also from the music stage, to become more established as a film actor. In 2004 he got his break in Burning out, for which he received the Golden Rose for Best Male performance at the National Film Awards.

In 2006-2007 Valdobrev completed a film directing specialization at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU). After graduating from there he directed a few short films, TV programs and music videos. He made his director's film debut in 2010 with the documentary comedy drama My Mate Manchester United. Provided with the cameo appearance of the Bulgarian football superstar Dimitar Berbatov, the film won two international awards and was presented in the competition of the official selection of 21 major world film festivals: IDFA Amsterdam, HotDocs Toronto, ZagrebDox, Sarajevo and Warsaw among them.

After being away from the rock stage for almost a decade in 2012 Stefan Valdobrev decided to rejoin his old band "The Usual Suspects" and to start recording songs and performing live in concerts again.

Early life Stefan Valdobrev was born in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, the son of Maria Valdobreva (née Atanassova) and Kostadin Valdobrev, both civil engineers. His mother was descended from Macedonian refugees who settled in the Rhodope Mountains, and his paternal ancestors come from midst of the country, where the Thracian valley meets with the Central Balkan region. Valdobrev has a sister, Iva (born 1965).

Not that he was a bad student, but he found early on that he would rather immerse himself in arts or football than attend to his studies. According to his own account: "The good old socialist block of flats I lived in was in the middle of a magical Bermuda triangle in which I got lost – the stadium, the cinema and the circus. I spent all my time there – playing with a ball, wandering with my friends, sneaking into the ballerinas' trailers, acting scenes from films I'd just watched, so I often forgot to go home until late at night. The school was something in between, but never became a part of this triangle".

He played the piano for quite a long time, but then decided to quit and take up the guitar. He started to take an interest in the theatre and joined a local amateur company at the town's chitalishte – a common Bulgarian Art House, where a variety of different arts could be trained and practiced. Very soon it became like a home to him: rehearsing plays on the stage, studying the guitar in the basement, reading and writing poetry in the attic, writing music for his own lyrics. It was not long before he made his acting debut as the King in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost.

Meanwhile Valdobrev attended the High School for Foreign Languages in Stara Zagora. For a Communist country behind the Iron Curtain which Bulgaria was at that time, this school was like a breath of fresh air – with a discipline not so strict and teachers being lenient and having a personal approach to each of the students. They soon noticed Valdobrev's wandering mind and lack of concentration in class and created a system which tried to help him study the English language better. They gave him constant tasks to listen to and write down lyrics of new songs, perform them with his guitar in the lessons and translate the words for his classmates. These everyday concerts were the real productive education for him and later, when he was traveling over the Black Sea resorts and Germany as a street musician, he already had a set-list of 300 prepared and well-rehearsed world hit songs of any genre.

In 1989 Valdobrev was accepted in Sofia University to study English philology, but soon quit and attended the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts to become part of what was later called: "the most successful acting class of the two highly praised Bulgarian professors – Krikor Azaryan and Todor Kolev". Together with his fellow actors and directors Galin Stoev, Marius Kurkinski, Kamen Donev, Stefka Yanorova, Koyna Ruseva, Kasiel Noah Asher, Lilia Maraviglia they formed the core of a New Wave in Bulgarian theatre.

2007 marked a significant turning point in his career. After an absence from the theatre stage for a few years, Valdobrev returned as a freelance actor for a beneficial collaboration with the Paris-based Comedie-Francaise Bulgarian director Galin Stoev, who started occasionally to return home only to stage the texts of the prominent contemporary young dramatist Yana Borisova. Small Play for a Children’s Room (2008), Pleasantlyscary (2010) and People from Oz (2013) became remarkable events in the theatre life and were many times awarded for best performance, best play, or best director.

Film

In the early 1990s Valdobrev made quite a few appearances on Bulgarian National Television, mainly as a participant in a students' show with a cult status named "Coo-Coo". Despite this success he subsequently decided to turn to film for more challenging roles. While struggling to establish himself in cinema, he took small parts in international co-production B movies. His onscreen career began in 2000 with the supporting role of the tricky Communist activist Popadamchev in the Bulgarian-Macedonian production Warming Up Yesterday's Lunch. The TV comedy Encounter (2003) gave him his first leading role as a clumsy journalist who falls in love with his cousin's girlfriend. 2004 was the year of his big movie break when he took on the lead in Burning Out, a love drama by director Stanimir Trifonov, set in the immediate post World War II period. Valdobrev’s performance of the romantic Italian doctor Enrico Corsa, separated from his Bulgarian wife and sent to a Communist prison camp, from which he finally escapes, has been described as fine, deep and centered , and brought him the Best Actor award at the Golden Rose National film ceremony. Valdobrev was cast as Mitko, an expert of campaigns in the team of his American colleague Tim Knight (Ross McCall) in the 2007 United States-Bulgarian political thriller Trade Routes. Taking the chance to play opposite the Italian prominent actor Sergio Castellitto, Valdobrev decided to make a cameo appearance in the 2007 TV war drama L'Aviatore, performing an Italian Jew, rescued by the Genoese skilled-pilot Massimo Teglio (Castellitto).

In 2008 he collaborated with director and friend Stefan Komandarev in his highly acclaimed film The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner, performing the supporting character of the Bulgarian emigrant Stoyan. The film enjoyed a rich festival career, won many nominations and awards, was released theatrically in 72 countries worldwide and reached the Short List of The Academy Awards 2010 for a Foreign Language film. That same year he starred opposite the Bulgarian born French actress Natalia Dontcheva in The Glass River, a mystery film by Stanimir Trifonov in which Valdobrev portrayed the obstinate priest Peter, a hermit who is experiencing a crisis of faith and trying to discover the secret of the Cathar-Bogomils, whilst crossing paths with an unknown visitor to his village, the French symbologist Ellen Tibaud. In 2012 Valdobrev played the lead role in the road comedy drama Migration of the Belted Bonito - a film by the Bulgarian independent and critically acclaimed film-maker Lyudmil Todorov. Valdobrev portrayed the poor and dreamy painter of Orthodox icons Simo, who, together with his close friend and neighbour, finds the most unorthodox way to make ends meet, with them both setting out on a comical journey from their modest village to the Black Sea shore. Critics praised the film as being "one of the finest comedies of the newest Bulgarian cinema".

Music

Film and Theatre When he was still in the Academy of Theatre and Film Arts Stefan Valdobrev was assigned to compose the music for almost every one of the performances he played in. The pilot single Is it me, or is it not? performed by Stefan Valdobrev and featuring his friend and colleague Arabel Karajan became one of the film songs classics. The film’s score earned Valdobrev the Golden Rose for a film debut at the 2000 National Film Awards ceremony. Two years later Komandarev and Valdobrev teamed up again in Komandarev’s second documentary film Alphabet of Hope. Their collaboration resumed with the director’s 2009 hit The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner, based on the best-selling novel by the German author Ilija Trojanow and featuring Miki Manojlovic in the lead role. Both the film and the soundtrack were very successful. Since 2008 he has provided the music for fiction and documentaries like the Czech films Kulicky (2008), Killing the Czech Way (2010) and Love in the Grave (2012), the Norwegian Can You Talk? (2011) and the Slovenian State of Shock (2011). In 2013 he started to create the score for the Bulgarian National Television series The Ungiven, a somber drama that tells the story of the saving of 48,000 Bulgarian Jews in the years of the Second World War.

His musical style is difficult to catalogue. It varies greatly with the passage of time, play after play and film after film. Working in a wide field of genres, due to the requirements of the dramaturgy or the script, Valdobrev successfully switches from melancholy, delicate and deeply emotional compositions to Balkan gypsy and folk brass music, from classic orchestra scores to ethno-ambient tunes. He sometimes uses a light jazz idiom with a slight hint of the absurd and another time would use examples of circus-like dodecaphonic themes in a gently ironic way. Artistic movements like New Romanticism, Postminimalism and World music are also influential on his work. What may be regarded as a mark of his output is the very occasional use of a memorable leitmotif in each of his compositions.

Based mostly on his twelve years of classical piano and acoustic guitar lessons at school, Valdobrev followed the way to a collaboration and friendship with the most outstanding Bulgarian musicians, jazz and ethno bands, symphony orchestras and conductors. He has often stated that the lack of musical Academy training was of course a disadvantage, but this was compensated by the advantage of being an actor who composes for fellow-actors and senses their need on the stage or on the screen: "After all, if you had the right professors and they were good in a certain art (which was my case) they could teach you the rules of arts in a way to use them in another field of your muses. Because the rules of art are universal. For me there’s no difference if I play a character, compose music or write poetry for my songs, it’s all about telling stories, communication, sharing thoughts and emotions, about the ability to stretch and push the boundaries with visions of your own world".

Parallel to this in 1988 he formed a band, named Alleya Alya – a blend of new wave, psychedelic art rock with a hint of ethno-elements. They made some gigs and some recording sessions, unfortunately all the tapes are missing. The group disbanded two years later when Valdobrev was accepted to study acting at the Theatre and Film Academy in Sofia.

In the next year, while being a member of the student's TV Show Coo-Coo, he garnered attention for a song called Cinema, which had later been added in the company's debut album, and turned out to be Valdobrev’s first released song ever.

The music style of the first records was a mixture between alternative rock, new wave and ethno jazz music. But there was an unexpected 'factor' that finally took the lead and cast its mighty shadow over the other songs: a musical joke which Valdobrev created together with friend and colleague Kamen Donev on their way back from a theatre tour in Vienna. Tired of the long and boring trip they took a bunch of keys for percussion and started rapping over a three chord country-like gypsy tune I love you, my dear. Back in Sofia they recorded the song in less than an hour, adding the characteristic voice of their colleague, the young actress Maya Bejanska. Meanwhile, in 1995 Valdobrev released a collection of his scores for theatre performances called A Night at the Theatre.

1998 was a turning point for him. When his solo album titled: ...to was released in October that same year, it topped the charts in the country, becoming a big critical and commercial success. The album spawned five number one hits: ...to, Heaven, One, Wolf and Yes and brought Valdobrev the annual music awards for Best Male Artist and Best Album. ...to represented a significant change in musical and thematic direction for Stefan and the band. Sonically the record incorporated influences from the Britpop and alternative rock of the time. And even if there were some songs with an impact from Bulgarian ethno music, the elements were very subtly dispersed into the prevailing guitar sound textures. A good example was the song One, featuring the Goran Bregovic Orchestra's folk singer Snejka Borisova. This album was unexpectedly darker and yielded decent reviews, but no major hits.

In 2001 Stefan Valdobrev decided to concentrate mainly on his acting career and took a long break from the music scene. For almost a decade he very sporadically released a few singles that became instant hits

Initially launched by Stanimir Trifonov and Vreme Film Studio, the project went through some difficulties, before being successfully finalized by producer Dragomir Keranov with the support of Desislav Dionisiev and Alexander Vrabevski.

The film was premiered on 10 March 2011 at the Sofia International Film Festival and has since then enjoyed a rich festival career, winning two international awards and being presented in the competition or the official selection of 21 major world film festivals: IDFA Amsterdam, HotDocs Toronto, ZagrebDox, Sarajevo and Warsaw among them. In 1998 Jana gave birth to their daughter Maria. Three weeks after that Valdobrev had a terrible car accident that almost cost him his life and kept him immovable and out of action for a year. For that reason he couldn’t join Regis Wargnier’s Oscar-nominated film production East/West, for which he'd been cast to play opposite Catherine Deneuve and Sandrine Bonnaire.

Social life The year of 1989, when Valdobrev attended the National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts, was crucial for the whole of Eastern Europe. The fall of the Communist regime in Bulgaria wasn't enough for the people and they demanded additional democratic reforms. Valdobrev became part of the strong student movement raised to power in the next few years of mass demonstrations, street riots, barricade protests and sieges of parliament. In 1990 the students caused a National strike by occupying all the Universities for more than a month. As a result the recently elected Communist President Petar Mladenov resigned. On the next year a new two-month-long occupation strike inflamed by the Art Academy students led to the resignation of the Communist Prime minister Andrey Lukanov. On 31 December 2006 Valdobrev hosted Bulgaria’s celebration concert for joining the EU. The event was held in Battenberg square in Sofia, and was attended by 80,000 people.

Filmography

Actor

Composer Year Title Notes 1994 Izmislici-Premislici TV series 1996 Sindbad Fiction film 1996 The Green HedgehogTV film 1997 The Nest TV film 1997 Good Life Fiction film 2000 Dog's Home Fiction filmGolden Rose Film Festival Award for Debut 2001 The Straw Orphan TV film 2003 Alphabet of Hope Documentary 2003 Camera, Curtain TV series 2003 Short Stories Documentary 2004 The House TV film 2008 Kulicky Fiction film 2008 Ogan I Voda TV film 2008 The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner Fiction film 2010 I Dream of Mummers Documentary 2010 Killing In the Czech Way Documentary 2011 My Mate Manchester United Documentary 2011 Can You Talk? Short film 2011 State of Shock Fiction film 2012 Love in the Grave Documentary 2013 Otazky pana Lasky Documentary 2013 The Ungiven TV series 2014 The Judgement Fiction film 2019 Father's Day TV series

Director Year Title Notes 2002 Chromosomes Music video 2006 Hana Short film 2007 Hide Short film 2009 100 years of Todor Kolev TV film 2011 My Mate Manchester United DocumentaryAlmaty International Film Festival Special AwardMinsk Listapad Film Festival Best Film-Portrait AwardNominated - ZagrebDox for Best Regional DocumentaryNominated - Warsaw International Film Festival for Best Documentary 2012 Helicopter Music video

Producer 2011 My Mate Manchester United DocumentaryAlmaty International Film Festival Special AwardMinsk Listapad Film Festival Best Film-Portrait AwardNominated - ZagrebDox for Best Regional DocumentaryNominated - Warsaw International Film Festival for Best Documentary 2019 Summer of the Usual Suspects Documentary

Theatre

Actor Year Title Theatre Notes 1992 Angel City NATFIZ 1993 Twelfth Night Youth Theatre Sofia 1993 Black Hole NATFIZ A'Askeer Award for Ensemble Cast Debut 1994 Agamemnon National Palace of Culture 1994 Woyzeck Bulgarian Army Theatre 1995 Learning To Fly Bulgarian Army Theatre 1997 Much Ado About Nothing Bulgarian Army Theatre 1997 The Master and Margarita Bulgarian Army Theatre 1998 Juan in Love Satirical Theatre Sofia 1999 And Give Us the Shadows Bulgarian Army Theatre 2000 Suburbia Bulgarian Army Theatre 2001 La Ronde Bulgarian Army Theatre 2001 Commedia del Servitore Bulgarian Army Theatre 2002 Eurydice Bulgarian Army Theatre 2002 Finale Grande Bulgarian Army Theatre 2003 Meteor Bulgarian Army Theatre 2004 Fantasmagorii Bulgarian Army Theatre 2005 The Brothers Karamazov Dramatic Theatre Plovdiv 2007 Small Play for a Children's Room Theatre 199 2008 Hamletmachine Bulgarian Army TheatreTheater Rampe StuttgartTheatre National du Luxembourg 2009 Pleasantlyscary Theatre 199 A'Askeer Award for Best Performance 2011 Blue/Orange Theatre 199 2013 People from Oz Theatre 199 2017 The Boy in the Last Row Drama Theatre Plovdiv 2017 Sentimental Tectonics Drama Theatre Sliven 2019 Evita State Opera Plovdiv 2022Pieces of a WomanIvan Vazov National Theatre

Composer Year Title Theatre Notes 1992 Angel City NATFIZ 1992 Chekhov - review Youth Theatre Sofia 1993 Twelfth Night Youth Theatre Sofia Nominated - A'Askeer Award for Best Original Music 1993 Black Hole NATFIZ 1994 The Fall of Ikarus SFUMATO 1994 Persifedron Bulgarian Army Theatre 1995 Lorenzaccio National Theatre Bitola 1996 Long Play Satirical Theatre Sofia 1997 Much Ado About Nothing Bulgarian Army Theatre 1998 Juan in Love Satirical Theatre Sofia 1998 Henry IV Bulgarian Army Theatre 1999 An Give Us the Shadows Bulgarian Army Theatre 1999 The Powder Keg Bulgarian Army Theatre 2000 Troilus and Cressida Bulgarian Army Theatre 2000 The Mediterraneans Satirical Theatre Sofia 2000 The Heroins Dramatic Theatre Varna 2002 Finale Grande Bulgarian Army Theatre 2003 The Powder Keg Moscow Dramatic Theatre 2003 The Phoney Civilization Dramatic-puppet Theatre Shumen 2003 Meteor Bulgarian Army Theatre 2003 Night before the Forest Sofia Theatre 2003 The Fourth Sister Bulgarian Army Theatre 2005 Day-off Ivan Vazov National Theatre 2005 Figures in a Love Flight SFUMATO Ikarus Theatre Award for Best Original Music 2005 Out of Control Bulgarian Army Theatre 2005 January Youth Theatre Sofia 2006 A Streetcar Named Desire Bulgarian Army Theatre 2006 Zmei Dramatic-puppet Theatre Shumen 2006 The Comedy of Errors Bulgarian Army Theatre 2006 The Cabinet Minister's Wife Divadlo Disk 2007 The Imaginary Invalid Klicperovo divadlo 2008 The Cabinet Minister's Wife Mestske divadlo Most 2008 Much Ado About Nothing National Theatre Bitola 2011 Working Hours Ivan Vazov National Theatre 2019 Take It Easy - songs by Stefan Valdobrev Drama Theatre PlovdivYouth Theatre Sofia

Discography

Albums Year Title Notes 1994 I love you, my dear 1995 A Night at the Theatre 1996 Revolution 1998 …to MM Music Award for Best AlbumMM Music Award for Best Male Performer 1998MM Music Award for Best Male Performer 19992018 - remastered and reissued 2000 Dog's Home Soundtrack 2001 Propaganda, Chromosomes, Silicon Nominated - BG Radio Music Awards for Best Male PerformerNominated - MM Music Awards for Best Rock/Alternative Album 2003 Opus Theatrale 2006 Opus Theatrale 2 2008 The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner Soundtrack 2013 Stefan Valdobrev and The Usual Suspects: LIVE Live album 2016 10½ Nominated - BG Radio Music Awards for Best AlbumNominated - BG Radio Music Awards 2018 for Best BandNominated - BG Radio Music Awards 2019 for Best Band

Singles Year Title Notes 1997 One & Heaven 2006 Fireworks 2010 The Riverbank Most Green feat. Ruth Koleva 2012 Helicopter 2014 Snow on the Sahara 2015 Hollywood 2016 The World is Beroe feat. the Usual Suspects, Poli Genova, Stanimir Gamov, Vanja Džaferović and fansA song commemorating the centenary of PFC Beroe Stara Zagora 2016 Take It Easy 2017 This Song is not about Love 2017 Samonedeymenervirataka (Picnic) 2018 Just Like That 2019 Beard Glue

Tours Year Title Notes 1996 Revolution Tour 1999 …to Tour 2000 Mason's Tour 2001 Propaganda Tour 2012 Stefan Valdobrev and The Usual Suspects 2017 The Bar by the Sea and the Sea by the Bar: Summer tour 2017 2017 European Tour 2017 2018 20 Years ...To 2018 Take It Easy Symphony 2018 Take It Easy Symphony Christmas Tour 2019 European Tour 2019 2019 Five Summer Concerts (To Say Nothing of the Winter One)

Music Videos and Films Year Title Notes 1994 I Love you, My Dear 1994 Alisa Reggae 1995 Job 1996 Ivana 1997 Heaven 1998 One 1998 …to 1999 Wolf 1999 Yes 1999 Tummy of a Penguin music documentary 2000 Is it me, or is it not? (feat. Arabel Karajan) 2001 Propaganda 2001 Silicon 2002 Exploadiram 2002 Chromosomes 2006 Fireworks 2009 Backgammon Dice 2012 Helicopter 2014 Snow on the Sahara 2015 Hollywood 2016 The World is Beroe 2016 Take It Easy 2017 This Song is not about Love 2017 Samonedeymenervirataka (Picnic) 2018 Just like that 2019 Summer of the Usual Suspects music documentary