Timur Turisbekov: Interview

30th October 2020

How did you come up with the idea for Bullets of Justice?

It all started with a music video for my band Project Zenit. Valeri Milev came up with an idea where human-pigs take over the world and people were their food. As the video came out very cinematic, a lot of people were asking if it was a trailer for the film. After giving a thought we decided with Valeri to go all in and shoot 45 min short film which we later extended to full feature by shooting extra material.

What was it like working with Danny Trejo?

It was really surprising to see how energetic and fit he is at that age. Unfortunately, we couldn’t allow ourselves to hire him for a whole film, but for the little time that we had we shot as much scenes as time allowed us.

He is very down to earth and we didn’t have any problems with him. He did everything what was written in the script and understanding that we are tight on budget, like a true professional didn’t waste time.

This is your first time acting on screen, did you have any concerns with filling the role?

As this was my first ever experience in acting, it was very nerve-wracking. Because when everything is in pre-production especially at script writing stage, all is fun. You write the lines, laugh at them and inside think “yeah, I can do that, there’s nothing hard about acting”.

However, when the first shooting day came and you see 30 people around you with cameras, microphones, monitors, props, etc. You listen to director’s instruction’s for example “Ok, you approach the table, pick up the glass of water and look outside the window” and then you hear “Sound! Camera! Aaaaaand action!”.

At that moment stroke occurs inside your head with severe paralysis of the body and simple actions such as picking up glass of water becomes an incredible effort because million questions start circling inside: “Am I picking it up too fast?”, “Am I doing it too slow?”, “Am I doing it fakely?”, “What am I doing here?”.

I think this self-overanalysis which occurs uncontrollably makes acting difficult. I was lucky that Rob Justice role wasn’t demanding on emotional delivery which requires a lot of training.

The whole experience of first-time filming reminds me of moment when you jump off the cliff into the cold water. And in that second when you are in the air you realize that there’s no turning back and all that is left is to relax and embrace it.

What’s your favourite action comedy?

One of my favorite is Kung Fu Hustle.

Which action movie star inspired Rob Justice the most?

It’s hard to say. Rob Justice is unique a character, a soft macho who is fighting his own war.

Bullets of Justice was originally shot as a pilot for a TV show, what prompted the decision to make it into a movie?

At first, we were aiming to do the series but then we saw it was hard to sell that concept as we didn’t know how to establish a system where each series would finance the next episode. For us it would’ve been the perfect system. So, we decided to extend the pilot episode into the full movie.

What cliches in other genres do you feel are overdone?

I think we see so many cliches because the means of production of films became much more accessible with development of technology. However, techniques of visual storytelling cannot be amended by technology which require years of training and deep knowledge. So, most of the time people choose just to copy what has worked before.

How did you get that amazing footballing cameo? By that I mean Bulgarian footballer Daniel Zlatkov

When we first invited Daniel to shoot, we were afraid that he wouldn’t understand the concept of the film and would think that we are making fun of him as we forced him to speak in Portuguese. But luckily, we were wrong as he is a great guy, very fun to work with, hard-working, never had any complains, did everything what was written in the script.

If it was up to you to save the world, what would you do first?

It’s hard to say. Depends on saving it from what. Probably I would banish neuroses from all the people. The world would become much more peaceful place.

What are you doing next?

We really want to continue shooting the series of Bullets of Justice, we have the story and everything all we need is to find financing.

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