Elka Nikolova is a New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 based Bulgarian film director. Born in Bulgaria, Nikolova moved to New York in 1994 where, in 2001, she completed a Master of Arts

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 in Media Studies at New School University.

She has received recognition as the director of her documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 Binka: To Tell a Story About Silence

Binka: To Tell a Story About Silence

Binka: To Tell a Story about Silence is a documentary film directed by Elka Nikolova. It is 48min in length, and was released in Bulgaria and in the United States in 2006. The topic of the film is the life of Bulgarian director Binka Zhelyazkova....

 which has helped to rekindle interest in the work and career of the pioneering Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

n film director Binka Zhelyazkova

Binka Zhelyazkova

Binka Zhelyazkova , was a Bulgarian film director who made films between the late 1950s and the 1990s. She was the first Bulgarian woman to direct a feature film and one of the few women worldwide to direct feature films in the 1950s.Zhelyazkova graduated from the Sofia Theatre Institute in 1956...

 (born 1923). The film took five years to make and includes interviews with many of Zhelyazkova's collaborators.

The documentary premiered in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, at the Museum of Modern Art, on April 4, 2007, and was shown at the 2007 South East European Film Festival in Los Angeles, California where is won the Audience Award for best documentary film; it won the award for Best Debut Film at the 2007 Golden Rython Festival for Nonfeature Films; and was also featured in Montreal, Quebec's International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA).

Nikolova's current project is a documentary about the plight of Bulgarian Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

External links

• http://www.artfifa.com/en/par-titre/index.php?option=com_film&task=view&id=1072&Itemid=433&lang=en
• link title/Binka: To Tell a Story About Silence
• http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=bg&u=http://www.binkadoc.com/bg/The%2520Film.htm&ei=V7WtScqiApGksQPLgoXHBA&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.binkadoc.com/bg/The%252520Film.htm%26num%3D30%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG
• IMDB.com