Bulgarian-Israeli Film Brings Stories of Burgas Airport Attack Victims to Screen

Jerusalem, 12 November, 2026 (TPS-IL) -- Sofia (BTA) – The filming of Sevda Shishmanova’s feature film “Pieces of Life” has been completed in Bulgaria and Israel, the National Film Center (NFC) reports.

The international production completed its filming period after three stages in the fall of 2025 and 2026 on locations in Burgas, Yakoruda and Tel Aviv. The film, which went through serious organizational challenges related to the situation in the Middle East, features Bulgarian and Israeli actors and creative teams, the NFC added.

“Pieces of Life” is an original project by Sevda Shishmanova, the film’s director and screenwriter. It tells the story of the terrorist attack at Burgas Airport in 2012, when a bus carrying Israeli tourists was attacked, killing the Bulgarian bus driver, five Israelis and the Lebanese bomber. The plot follows the personal stories of the victims, returning to the last 24 hours of the lives of the victims and the bomber, who intersect at the point of death.

Thirteen Israeli actors participated in the three filming stages. The roles of the dead Israeli tourists are played by Adam Avidan, Noam Imbar, Moran Rosenblatt, David Ekbar and Noam Carmeli. The other characters are played by Eli Gorenstein, Shimon Mimran, Israeli music star Elisha Banai, Tom Graziani, Netta Emmanuel, Niva Alush and actors of Palestinian origin Minas Kurani and Lean Azem.

The Bulgarian cast includes Zahari Baharov as the deceased Bulgarian driver, Samuel Fintsi as the investigator, Kaloyan Trifonov as the investigative photographer, and Ahmed Yumer as the assassin. Other cast members include Georgi Zlatarev, Nadya Keranova, Nikola Parashkevov, Plamen Manasiev, Stefan Ivanov, Asen Lozanov, Zafir Radjab, Navid Afzali, Dimo ​​Alexiev, Yordan Rusin, Milena Kaneva, Svezhen Mladenov, and Beata Todor Atanasova as the driver’s daughter.

Sevda Shishmanova’s work on the project lasted eight years. It began with trips to Israel, meetings and interviews with the relatives of the deceased, which became the basis for the stories in the script, despite the fact that the film is fiction. The project won first place in the sessions of the National Film Center and the Bulgarian National Television, and its selection for the Berlinale Co-Production Market was decisive in the development of the international partnership, the NFC noted.

“The film really brought me back to my years of journalism, because the preparation and filming period coincided with the extreme political events of the Hamas massacre in Israel in October 2023 and the subsequent retaliatory war in Gaza, which cost thousands of victims,” ​​commented Sevda Shishmanova, who was a BNT correspondent in war zones.

“I followed the news in detail. The filming process was literally stopped by the war between Israel and the US with Iran and the entire production became dependent on military events, the impossibility of working with the Israeli producers who were in bomb shelters, the limited travel with permanently closed airspace for the actors, crews and the security of the filming in Tel Aviv. However, this is in some painfully true way the context of the film’s idea that we live in an uncertain world, where political goals are paid for at the cost of innocent human lives and none of us are out of danger,” adds the director of “Pieces of Life”.

Among the main filming locations are the Burgas Airport terminal, where the attack actually took place, villages in the Yakoruda municipality near Yurukovo – the birthplace of the deceased Bulgarian driver – and Jaffa, the historic part of Tel Aviv.

After the completion of the shooting, the film moves to post-production in Bulgaria and Germany. The producers of the film are “Red Carpet” with Veselka Kiryakova and “Mindstream Productions” with Georgi Skerlev. The executive producer on the Israeli side is MK Production with Kobi Mizrahi.

The film’s cinematographer is Kaloyan Bozhilov, co-screenwriter Milena Petrova, editing director Zorica Kotseva, art designer Viktor Andreev, composer Petar Dundakov, costume designer Kiril Naumov, makeup artist Marina Boshnakova, first assistant director Ivelina Alexieva, and associate director in Israel Sara Bozakov.

“Pieces of Life” is financed by the National Film Center, in co-production with the Bulgarian National Television, Falconwing Studio and 2Pilots Filmproduction (Germany), and is realized with the support of the Culture Fund of the Municipality of Burgas, the Municipality of Pomorie and the Municipality of Yakoruda.