Burgas Airport attack inspires new Bulgarian-German-Israeli film

Shooting began here for Remains of Life, a feature film tracing the last 24 hours of the lives of seven persons who were killed in a terrorist bombing at the Burgas Sarafovo Airport in 2012.

The film is being shot on the site of the actual attack, the local administration said in a press release, CE Report quotes BTA.

The Bulgarian-German-Israeli co-production is written and directed by Sevda Shishmaova, with Milena Petrova as co-screenwriter. The director of photography is Kaloyan Bojilov, and the producers are Veselka Kiryakova, the Red Carpet Production Company, Mindstream Productions, and Georgi Skerlev.

Bulgarian actors Samuel Finzi, Zachary Baharov and Kaloyan Trifonov and Israeli actors Shimon Mimran, Tom Graziani and Alma Dishi star in the film.

"Over the years as an international correspondent, when covering terrorist attacks in various places around the world, I have always felt immense sadness that the statistics in the news leave untold the personal stories of the people who die, with their dreams and failures, loves and breakups, successes and disappointments, worlds that disappear at the moment of the explosion. In our world divided by wars and hatred, politicians have definitively lost their greatest ally: the people and the battle for humanism. But I believe that artists can still achieve this with the last bit of empathy we keep, by telling stories about what we all have in common in our pain: the value of life. The characters in my film follow the only path we have – to witness the pain of others," Shishmanova commented.

From Burgas, the shooting will move to the area of the Yurukovo village and Yakoruda, where the Bulgarian bus driver was born and whose story underpins the plot of the film. Owing to the complicated situation in Israel, the filming process has been split into two and will resume next spring at other locations and in Tel Aviv, where the stories of the killed Israelis will be shot.

At 5:23 p.m. on July 18, 2012, an explosive device was detonated in the parking area in front of the Arrivals Terminal of the Burgas Sarafovo International Airport (on the Black Sea).

The bomb, planted in the luggage compartment of a tourist bus, killed five Israeli holiday-makers, who had just arrived from Tel Aviv and were boarding the bus, the Bulgarian bus driver, and the suicide attacker, who was identified as Mohammad Hassan El-Husseini, a dual Lebanese-French national. Nearly 40 other people were injured.

No organization has claimed responsibility for the bombing. Israel and Bulgaria have accused Hezbollah's military wing of providing financing and logistics for the attack. Hezbollah and Iran have denied the allegations.

In 2022, ten years after the attack, the bomber's two aiders: Meliad Farah (dual Lebanese-Australian national) and Hassan El Hajj Hassan (dual Lebanese-Canadian national) were sentenced in their absence by Bulgaria's Appellate Specialized Criminal Court to life imprisonment without commutation. BGN 200 million in civil damages was awarded to the families of the six victims of the attack. By 2025, Farah and Hassan were still on the INTERPOL Red Notice List.