Someone Once Here
2025
Town of Buhovo, Central Department of Rare Metals
“Someone, Sometime, Here” searches for meaning in absence – a poetic attempt to hear what remains where buildings have vanished, to reclaim memory where official narratives have forgotten, and in doing so to create a shared space of belonging between people, place, and history.
Continuing their collaborative work writer and documentarian Maria Makedonska and Italian artist and researcher Nicola Zambelli turn their attention to the periphery of Sofia — specifically the town of Buhovo, a former mining town on the outskirts of the capital.
Through field research, recorded conversations and poetic writing, the artists explore how memories of disappearing buildings – once homes, cultural centers, hospitals, or factories – are carried, mourned or reimagined by local residents.
By listening to personal narratives connected to these spaces, they create a collective poetic archive of loss, resistance and transformation.
The two began their collaboration in 2023 as part of the Baba Residence, where they discovered a shared interest in verbal history, cultural memory and artistic interventions in peripheral and depopulating spaces. In 2024 they realized the Ruins of Memory project in Northwest Bulgaria, and the current project is its continuation in an urban environment. Their collaboration is based on a shared attention to vulnerable places, a documentary approach, poetic language and a deep respect for local voices.
The presentation includes conversations with local residents, a walk through the streets of the small town and a screening of the new film by the two artists.
The film was also presented in August 2025 in Pavolche village and in Vidin.
Maria Makedonska is a writer, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker whose practice combines literature, field research and poetic narrative. She works in dialogue with vanishing places, verbal history and cultural memory, often creating hybrid forms between documentary and fiction. In 2023 she participated in the Baba Residency, where he began a collaboration with Italian artist Nicola Zambelli. In 2024 the two realized the Ruins of Memory project in Northwest Bulgaria. In the same year Maria participates in the Nine Elephants Festival with the project Lige and the Flea Market. Among her other projects from 2024 are I Hear You – an audio installation in which two strangers have an anonymous and intimate telephone conversation, and The River of People – a fictional story based on stories told by residents of three neighborhoods in Veliko Tarnovo (Varusha South, Varusha North and the Turkish Quarter), presented as an exhibition and poetry reading in an urban environment.
Nicola Zambelli is a filmmaker and visual researcher whose practice combines philosophy, documentary filmmaking and fieldwork with vulnerable communities. He studied hermeneutic philosophy in Bologna and MA in documentary film at IED Milan. At the heart of his approach is narrative identity – the relationship between personal storytelling and processes of social transformation. He works in dialogue with territories marked by loss, resistance or alienation – from Palestinian villages to prison spaces and post-socialist ruins. In recent years he has realized Saruura. The Future is an Unknown Place – a project in Palestine tracing how youth activists use the medium as a tool of resistance; 11 Giorni – a visual-poetic exploration of the emotional world of prisoners in Brescia; and Cracks – a reflection on social erosion in post-industrial Pernik. In 2023 he participated in the Baba Residency in Bulgaria, where together with Maria Makedonska they created the film Damore – about love, rituals and silence in depopulating villages. Their work continues with Ruins of Memory in Northwest Bulgaria and the current project Sofia, which takes this research into an urban context.
The presentation is part of the project Creation of New Cultural Products in the Urban Environment – Presentation in Sofia (Nine Elephants Festival) and Berlin (C*Space), funded under Component 11 Social Inclusion, Investment 6 Development of the Cultural and Creative Sectors, Procedure BG-RRP-11.020, Grant Scheme Creation of Bulgarian Productions and Co-productions in the CCI Sector and their Promotion in European and International Arts Markets of the Recovery and Resilience Plan.
The entire responsibility for the content of the project lies with Blue Cube Foundation and under no circumstances can it be assumed that this document reflects the official position of the European Union or the National Culture Fund.
The presentations in other cities are carried out with financial support from the Mobility program of the Sofia Municipality, Culture Program.
Links
Presentation of an audio guide that can be listened to individually or in a group during a walk through the city