Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
On Tuesday March 31 at 6:30 p.m., Berea College will host a screening of Thom Southerland’s award-winning 2014 feature film Proud Citizen. The screening will take place at the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center. It is sponsored by Berea’s English Senior Seminar on “Living Literate Lives” as well as Berea’s Film Studies Program and Loyal Jones Appalachian Center. The screening will include a Q&A session with both Thom Southerland and lead actor Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, whose life and work inspired the film. The event is free and open to the community.
Proud Citizen takes place over the course of five days in the life of a young Bulgarian playwright named Krasimira Stanislava. After winning second place in a play-writing contest, Krasimira travels to the rolling hills of Kentucky for the premiere of her autobiographical, Communist-era play Black Coat. Expecting southern hospitality, Krasi instead finds herself isolated and lonely as she explores America on foot. Proud Citizen is a funny, sometimes heartbreaking meditation on disappointment, traveling, the comfort of strangers and the joy of funnel cakes. The film is named after the runner-up at the 2002 Kentucky Derby, whom Krasimira meets in the film.
Southerland is known primarily for documentary film work, particularly Body Maps, a film that investigated the effects of art therapy on organ transplant patients. He lives in Lexington, where aside from filmmaking he is also the coordinator for the cable channel of the Lexington Public Library as well as the Library’s Farish Theater. The character of Krasimira is played by Lexington local Katerina Stoykova-Klemer. Stoykova-Klemer is well known in Lexington as a poet and as founder and editor of Accents Publishing, a poetry press. She also hosts Accents: A Radio Show for Literature, Art and Culture which airs weekly.
The film was shot throughout 2012 in Lexington and partially in Bulgaria, where Stoykova-Klemer is from. In October 2014 the film was the jury winner at the New Orleans Film Festival. It has won numerous other accolades at film festivals in Knoxville, Paducah and Weyauwega.
More information on the film is available at http://proudcitizenthemovie.com.
Contact: Libby Jones, 985-3757, libby_jones@berea.edu