Teen dystopia Feature film Shooting in Apulia, Italy 2025
Screenwriters
Zvezdomira Bozhana
Viktoria Penkova
Zornitsa Sophia
Director
Zornitsa Sophia
Producer
Mountain Queen Pictures
Co-Producer
Alessandro Borrelli, La Sarraz Pictures, Italy
Grand for Realisation from Bulgarian National Film Center, December 2023
LOGLINE
In a post-apocalyptic world, a flying girl is hunted down as an anomaly and forced to become a “normal” memberof the oppressive society while trying to find her long-lost parents.
SYNOPSIS
Meeting humans for the first time, flying teenager Alia is hunted down by the Anomaly Fighting Committee for her abilities.
Determined to learn the truth about the disappearance of her parents and to meet more fellow men, she goes straight into “the beast’s lair”. She finds the city of Bocht, where the last remains of “mankind” were saved after the apocalyptic end of World War III.
Alia tries to fit in with her peers, who are forced to make families and give birth from young age to save humanity from extinction.
Revealed and forever bereft of her gift of flight, Alia tries to teach her friends to fly in order to defy the system and the all-powerful Committee.
Together with the audience, Alia will discover the joy of sharing… And maybe take her first steps in flying.
DIRECTOR'S NOTES
This is a radical film based on an archetypal theme – almost everyone dreams of flying. As children, more so; as we grow up, only in our dreams and rarely. My childhood dream I missed the most is the one that I was a dragon with wings and metal feathers. I associate flying with freedom, joy, inspiration – emotions defining the experience of a child – the adults crave for and dream to get back.
This is the opposite of a sweet children’s film. It is a rough and ruthless dystopia, just as ruthless as the teenagers, our main audience, can be. In this post apocalyptic world the teens are forced to mate and deliver babies to save the mankind and instructed by an oppressive regime. Being sexy and provocative in social media is interesting for the teenagers nowadays, but it the world of the story it is obligatory, competitive and this way scary.
The tone is not dark, quite the opposite – the film is to be shot mostly in South Italy, Apulia region – but the dangerous part comes from the rules of the committee. In addition to its crazy premise, I dream “Fly!” to be a “flight tutorial” – a manual of some values that will matter even after the end of the world.
DIRECTOR'S CV
Zornitsa Sophia graduated as fine artist, participated in 60 exhibitions internationally before specializing filmmaking. She has written, directed and produced 4 feature films and 2 documentaries; she directed 7 prime time tv series, one theatre performance and an Opera. Her feature films “Mila from Mars”, “Forecast”, “Voevoda” and “Mother” are selected or awarded at major film festivals like Goa, Warsaw, Shanghai, Cairo, Sarajevo, Busan, Mar del Plata, Moscow, two of them being box office hits nationally and two of them are selected as Bulgarian submission for the Academy Awards. Zornitsa Sophia is member European Film Academy, UBF, BAC and BG-EWA and regularly conducts workshops on filmmaking.
