Viktoria — Bulgarian director Maya Vitkova’s first feature film — premiered in 2014 at the Sundance Film Festival to positive reviews. However, after that initial screening it was shelved away from stateside eyes for two years. Why? No one can be certain. Perhaps distributors, sadly, assumed American audiences did not want a female-directed, female-led, drama about pregnancy, child-rearing, and childhood. Perhaps it was due to the film including depictions of a communist state (Cold War fear carry-over, anyone?). Or, perhaps the story of a girl born with no belly button seemed just too odd to sell (Although ABC Family ran a show about a boy with no belly button for three years). Whatever the reason, local Boston viewers now have a chance to catch Viktoria at the Museum of Fine Arts, and they very well should. These are the kinds of stories which deserve support.

Viktoria is, as mentioned, the tale of an infant – the titular Viktoria – born in 1970’s communist Bulgaria with no umbilical cord. Thus, logically, no belly button. This absurdist set-up is representative of the fact Viktoria was an unwanted pregnancy, by her West-dreaming mother, but is taken to dramatic extremes when the head of the communist government spies Viktoria’s navel-less body and declares her “the baby of the decade!” Why? Because it shows a new step in human evolution, of course. We’ve moved past belly buttons! Viktoria promptly becomes a symbol of hope and the film from here follows her upbringing as both a national icon and an unwanted child.

But really Viktoria is a story about women by women, with a focus on the female body and its functions without sexualizing or objectifying. A rarity in the male-dominated field of filmmaking. Thereby making Viktoria especially unique. To quote the director herself: “I imagine some male directors would have been more focused on making it spectacular or the opposite – extremely ascetic. Thinking about it, this film is a combination of both asceticism and emotion. If there is something spectacular about it at all, it is the lack of spectacularity. Women can carry more pain than men, I confirm” (Source).

Viktoria
2014
dir. Maya Vitkova
155 min.
Plays 8/18 through 8/27 @ Museum of Fine Arts Boston – click here for showtimes and ticket info