My graduate school documentary thesis film, from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism (2000):
Increasing hope and inevitable disappointment shape the course of three 20th century Bulgarian political upheavals. The story is told by representatives of two generations, inhabiting the visual space around the Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum, a monument to Bulgaria’s first communist dictator. Despite three failed attempts by Bulgaria’s anti-Communist rulers to blast the mausoleum into history, the Mausoleum remains standing. The oblique and macabre symbol provokes the viewer to question his or her assumptions about themes commonly taken for granted: freedom and responsibility, democracy, hope and disappointment.