SEEfest 2021 Interviews: A QUESTION OF SURVIVAL’s Elka Nikolova talks about how both the filmmaker and subjects deal with a central question can make or break a documentary

Elka Nikolova’s A QUESTION OF SURVIVAL, which screened recently at the South East European Film Festival, looks at the legacy of the Holocaust in the Balkans, as seen through the eyes -and conflicting memories- of three Bulgarian Jewish survivors in New York. Chaim Zemach, a cellist; Robert Bakish, an engineer; and Misha Avramoff, a social worker on the Lower East side of Manhattan in New York – each of whom were living with their families in Bulgaria during the country’s alliance with the Nazis. When in March 1943 the Bulgarian government first postponed and ultimately cancelled the imminent deportation of the entire Bulgarian Jewish community of 48 000, Misha, Chaim and Robert were ages 5, 14 and 17. After the war their families left Bulgaria, and the three young Bulgarians only grasped how close they came to death after they arrived in New York and learned the fate of millions of European Jews.

The film is a fascinating, yet casually presented look at conflicting perspective, acceptance and denial of survivors’ guilt, and the ultimate reconciliation of our place in history. It also, inadvertently, (at least for me) delivers a loving portrait of one of the things that makes New York City such a rarity in this country as a true epicenter for the connection of people and cultures and viewpoints. It literally gave me “I miss New York” pangs as I watched these gentlemen talk and debate and argue and commiserate amongst themselves. That’s a part of New York that I truly loved.

In the interview, we talk about the “responsibility” of the documentarian to choose great spokespeople as interview subjects for their films, as well as how kismet can come into play in finding the right people to put in front of their cameras. Elka also talks in depth about the central question in the film of “Can I consider myself a survivor or not?” as well as how she approached that question helped her unlock the key to making the film.