Viktor Ivanov

BulgariaBUNA+

Biography

Writer and director based in Sofia, Bulgaria and working elsewhere most of the time. He tries to capture and manipulate the rawest emotions, to the extent where you doubt your own sense of what you need to feel while watching. He does everything from commercials to feature films and for now his work has taken him to UK, France, Italy and Croatia. Awarded the Special Jury Award in Italian Short Film Competition Spazio Italia in the 40th Torino Film Festival

Archive records · BUNA vol.3 / 2025

The Border Is a Wrinkle, 2025 Solo photography exhibition Dimensions not supplied

BUNA+
Gallery / Collective
Zhar Art

Wrinkles are gravitational jokes played by time. They say, “You think life is smooth? Here, have a fold.” In these portraits of old people, each face is a map of battles fought and naps taken. I don’t want to romanticize old age. It’s heavy, it’s crooked, it smells like medicine sometimes. But it’s also full of tenderness, wisdom, and a kind of stubborn beauty that refuses to die. I’m not a photographer at all. I’m a savage, mostly. I shoot with whatever is in my pocket—sometimes an analogue camera that stutters like a bad memory, sometimes a cheap digital one. I’m not chasing perfection, not even good quality though. Because sometimes, the raw mess is the only honest thing left. The wrinkle itself is a border—an uneven line folding the skin like a map. It’s where time pulls and pushes, marking the invisible borders between past and present, strength and fragility, memory and forgetting.