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PROJECTS

We do a variety of projects, from investigative TV reports, documentary work for clients to animated docs to social ads.
Here are some highlights of our work in the recent years

WE SEE UKRAINE

After a successful run the City Art Gallery - Plovidv, Forum Gallery – Zagreb, and Galrija Prica - Samobor, the WE SEE UKRAINE exhibition is coming to Sofia.

Coming soon

CONSUMER BASKET FOR THE SOUL

Exhibition by documentary artist Anna Stoeva at DERIDA Dance Center on the goods we lay out on the supermarket checkout lane and the stories they tell.

Coming soon

INVALUABLE OBJECTS

The exhibition, part of a project of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee and the Alliance for Protection Against Gender-Based Violence, presents a series of intimate photographs of personal belongings of women, murdered by their partners.

Coming soon

ONE IN FOUR | FRIENDSHIP

A social ad against domestic violence for the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee.

PORTRAITS OF FREEDOM

A series of documentary portraits of activists, artists and refugees and the prisms through which they see their intimate understanding of freedom.

ON THE BALKAN REFUGEE ROUTE

A series of videos for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and ELF documenting the journey of European thinkers and changemakers on the Balkan refugee route in search for liberal answers.

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HEY, SIGNAL

Carpool karaoke style interviews for Dnevnik.bg and Volkswagen. With Stefan Valdobrev, Polly Genova, Divna and Review.

PORTRAITS OF HEALTH MEDIATORS

Two short documentaries on the road for the International organization for Migration, following the work of two Roma health mediators on site in Bulgaria.

ELECTION RECIPES

Interactive data portal done with the Institute for Public Environment Development about traditional Bulgarian recipes for cooking up elections.

FARM COMPASS

Interactive portal for tracking the actual effect of EU agricultural funds.

A NEW SECURITY POLICY FOR EASTERN EUROPE

Series of videos documenting conferences and events of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.

PAYDAY

A film noir social ad against election fraud, for the Institute for Public environment Development.

CLASSROOM STORIES

Intimate documentary portraits of teachers starting out on their Teach for All journey. For Teach for Bulgaria.

POLITICS IS FOR OTHER PEOPLE

Documentary film for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom about emerging liberal parties on the European political scene.

LOVE

An intimate short documentary portrait of a family, with warm and humorous animation elements, exploring the magical nuts and bolts making a marriage last for decades. With the support of the National Culture Fund.

Coming soon

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ANIMATED

Animated documentaries and web

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HEAR

Animated documentary campaign for the project HEAR, giving voice to refugees stranded in limbo. For the Foundation for Access to Rights.

DNEVNIK VIDEO

Setting up and launching the video department of Bulgaria's leading online daily news portal Dnevnik.bg, including its brand of explainer videos In a nutshell / С две думи.

CAPITAL SPOT

Video commercial for the news portal Capital.

VOTE IN 80 SECONDS

Documenting a hackathon on election data for the Institute for Public Environment Development.

INVESTIGATIVE WORK

Documentary research and investigative journalism

BORDERS

Pulse Films, Channel 4 | UK

David stepped in as assistant producer and researcher on this investigative documentary directed by Tom Costello.

BORDER PATROL

KRO-NCRV | Netherlands

Brandpunt Segment on Bulgarian vigilante paramilitary groups patrolling the Bulgaria-Turkey border.

FATAL TRANSPORT

KRO-NCRV | Netherlands

Brandpunt Reporter Segment on the Bulgarian smuggling network accused of trafficking the 71 refugees found suffocated in a refrigerator truck by the side of an Austrian highway. Research and investigative work.

FOREIGN ADOPTIONS – THE BULGARIAN CASE

KRO-NCRV | Netherlands

Investigative segment on Bulgaria as the biggest European export country of children for adoption. The journey of healthy Bulgarian children from their biological families to foreign adoptions and its underlying economics.

BULGARIAN ARMS TRADE

Buzzfeed News | USA

Research, fixer and investigative work for Buzzfeed News piece on arms trade in the Middle East and the involvement of Bulgarian state of the art - or not so state of the art - arms dealers in it.

THE YOUNG TEACHERS

Deutsche Welle TV | Germany

In the failing Bulgarian school system only 3% of teachers are under 30 and most of them are forced to keep a second job to support themselves: the economic consequences of EU’s poorest state neglecting education are dire.

PRINCE OF ORPHANS

Deutsche Welle TV | Germany

Segment on a Bulgarian priest’s shelter for the disadvantaged. Using record public donations after high-profile, televised clashes with state authorities looking to close down the orphanage, Father Ivan buys up scores of houses in a village in the economically devastated Bulgarian North-west, and begins a large scale socio-economic experiment. Providing shelter is one matter, but giving homeless people a path to ownership and a stake in building their own farm - something entirely different.

THE BANK AND
THE PRIME MINISTER

Deutsche Welle TV | Germany

In the face of catastrophic political delegitimization with less than 8% support and the impossibility of making any public appearance without thousands of protesters blocking his escape routes, Prime Minister Oresharski appeared determined to survive all calls for resignation. However, the unexpected collapse of a major Bulgarian bank was to overwhelm his obstinacy. With 2 billion Euros (5% of GDP) in bad loans wiping out the deposits of citizens and State Owned Companies alike, the bank crisis finally bought Mr. Oresharski a shameful place in history as the shortest lived Prime Minister who wouldn’t know when to quit.

ONE FENCE TO
STOP THEM ALL

Deutsche Welle TV | Germany

In the early days of the refugee crisis, Bulgaria found itself on the forefront of the problem with a sudden influx of more than 6 thousand refugees entering the country in the fall of 2013. With the Dublin convention requiring Bulgaria to register, care for and integrate new migrants within its own underdeveloped social economy, the government’s choice was to build a wall to keep them out instead.

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PRODUCTION WORK

Production team work on fiction projects

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TEN THOUSAND SAINTS

Maven Pictures | USA

David stepped in as production supervisor for this charming period coming of age drama by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer-Berman. Producers Celine Rattray, Trudie Styler, Anne Carey. Starring Ethan Hawke, Emile Hirsch, Hailee Steinfeld

FILM

Films we've produced, written or directed through the years

THE PEACH THIEF

One of 10 documentaries commissioned by the Bulgarian National Television on the 10 best Bulgarian feature films of all time. Part of celebrations of the Centenary of Bulgarian Cinema

EASTER DANCE OF THE DEAD

A portrait of an age old tradition in a remote Vallachian village, where once a year the dead come back to life to dance with those who will never forget.

SECTION 59

An election comedy: young and green Danish observers arrive in Bulgaria to monitor the 2011 presidential elections. But what they see is slightly different to what they expect...

GETTING FAT IN A HEALTHY WAY

Produced by Anna Stoeva for Revo Films and Pink Sheep Think. In a dystopian world where Earth's gravity has been weakened, anyone weighing less than 120 kilos flies off into space. The skinny Constantine must live his whole life inside, until a girl moves in next door and changes everything.

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ABOUT US

Anna Stoeva + David Djambazov

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tanuki films is an award-winning boutique production team focused on documentary film, journalism and interactive storytelling. Since our founding in 2011 we have created and serviced a number of documentary campaigns, investigative journalism segments, commercial and film projects. We work with a team of visual srotytellers with a strong background and passion for film, which we transform to serve the social and brand stories we tell. Our latest passion is data journalism, and particularly stories that combine data visualization with documentary storytelling.

Anna started her career as development producer for AGITPROP, top Bulgarian creative documentary production company. High profile co-productions she worked on include The Last Black Sea Pirates (HotDocs 2013, FIPRESCI Award Krakow 2013), Dad Made Dirty Movies (premiere at Visions du Reel 2011) and Paradise Hotel (HBO Bulgaria). In the summer of 2011, after a distribution internship at Magnolia Pictures, Anna co-founded tanuki films. Since then she has been the recipient of the Nipkow Emerging Producers Grant, and worked on projects in Moscow, Berlin and Sofia. Getting Fat In A Healthy Way which she produced in 2015 has been selected at over 70 festivals worldwide and won 15 international awards to date. In 2017-2019 she was co-creator and head writer of the SKY Germany mystery horror show Hausen.

David comes from a background as diverse as a degree in Physics from Caltech, a long stint as a trader on Wall Street, and production work in experimental theater in New York. Graduate of a directing program of the FAMU Film Academy, his debut short documentary Easter Dance of the Dead was nominated for Best Debut by the Bulgarian Film Academy. His credits in fiction include line producer’s assistant on the the independent feature Girl Most Likely, starring Annette Bening and Matt Dillon, theatrically distributed by Lionsgate, and line producer on the pilot episode of the TV series Ozabochennye, filmed for the Russian channel TNT in Moscow. David's passion for data has currently led him to the Master in Data Science program of UC Berkeley.

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