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Savina Petkova

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Savina Petkova is a Bulgarian freelance film critic based in London, UK. Her English bylines include MUBI Notebook, photogénie, AwardsWatch, Screen Queens and more. She also writes for the Bulgarian Film Society and runs a regular column on female-directed films in print for the weekly Literaturen Vestnik. Member of BAFTSS, FIPRESCI, and FEDORA.

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Forastera (2025) 94% EDIT “"A rare, nuanced look at grief and growing up."” – Cineuropa Sep 14, 2025 Full Review The Last Viking (2025) 94% EDIT “A perceptive take on men’s mental health––not through struggles, but a delightful mix of genre, meta-texuality, and positive affirmation masked as a Beatles song. ” – The Film Stage Sep 8, 2025 Full Review Marc by Sofia (2025) EDIT “It’s hard to say whether the balminess of the film is a result of a friendly disposition, or if Coppola’s auteurist touch is way too light.” – The Film Stage Sep 7, 2025 Full Review Silent Friend (2025) 100% EDIT “Maybe this is what the ecological film of the future should be: a tender romance between species (humans and plants, or cinema and audiences).” – The Film Stage Sep 7, 2025 Full Review In the Hand of Dante (2025) 43% EDIT “Well knowing that it stands between Inferno and Paradise, In the Hand of Dante wears its revisionist streak like a beauty-pageant sash in the absence of a crown. ” – The Film Stage Sep 4, 2025 Full Review The Wizard of the Kremlin (2025) 49% EDIT “Audiences resisted Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice because they feared the idea of Donald Trump being a movie’s protagonist, but never in its runtime does The Wizard of Kremlin show any ambivalence towards its main character.” – The Film Stage Sep 1, 2025 Full Review Frankenstein (2025) 85% EDIT “Religious undertones notwithstanding, the notion of forgiveness is crucial in Del Toro’s film and perhaps makes it the most optimistic of this year’s Golden Lion contenders.” – The Film Stage Aug 31, 2025 Full Review Cover-Up (2025) 98% EDIT “Cover-Up may as well be the most important American documentary of the year.” – The Film Stage Aug 30, 2025 Full Review Ghost Elephants (2025) 100% EDIT “Herzog’s commentary envelops Ghost Elephants like a storyteller’s cloak, recounting not only the work done by and kept in the Smithsonian vaults, but also Dr. Boyes’ expedition to the highlands of Angola. ” – The Film Stage Aug 29, 2025 Full Review Holding Liat (2025) 100% EDIT “Kramer observes the Beinin family as both a unit––their interactions, shared grief, heated arguments––and individuals. The camera is present to hyperrealistic degrees, testifying to the urgency of this situation and absolute need for documenting it.” – The Film Stage Jun 10, 2025 Full Review The Mastermind (2025) 90% EDIT “[The film's] beautifully quiet poeticism emphasizes the throbbing hope for a better life.” – Hammer to Nail Jun 4, 2025 Full Review Sentimental Value (2025) 97% A- EDIT “Thanks to its soft touch handling familial drama, Sentimental Value feels like a film you’d like to live in, as cozy as a creaky house and as warm as a parent’s embrace.” – Hammer to Nail Jun 4, 2025 Full Review Alpha (2025) 56% EDIT “At best, Alpha is as dry as the marble dust left of those who didn’t make it.” – Hammer to Nail Jun 4, 2025 Full Review Peak Everything (2025) 75% 3/4 EDIT “[With such] a well-calibrated cast, between Hivon’s endearing portrayal of eco anxiety (and a tiny bit of egocentrism) and Perabo’s performance of childlike wonder, there is an undeniable softness to this particular apocalyptic narrative. ” – Hammer to Nail Jun 4, 2025 Full Review Die My Love (2025) 74% A EDIT “ It’s a film so insisting, so compelling in a masochistic way, that you’re bound to either love it or hate it. Lynne Ramsay’s [...] never played it safe, nor have her characters. When it comes to love, losing everything is the only way to win.” – Hammer to Nail Jun 2, 2025 Full Review The Chronology of Water (2025) 90% EDIT “Dynamism and movement is what defines cinema as an art, too, and while this may be a truism, it takes both mastery and discipline to make form fit content so perfectly, on such an elemental level.” – The Film Stage May 26, 2025 Full Review A Magnificent Life (2025) 62% EDIT “Chomet’s film is an edifying, educating piece of work, beautifully drawn and composed; having versions of it dubbed in both French and in English will surely help it reach a wider audience. ” – The Film Stage May 24, 2025 Full Review Adam's Sake (2025) EDIT “A more generous reading of Wandel’s latest would celebrate its underscoring of hospitals and legal systems deciding on the wellbeing of a child without realizing how enmeshed those decisions are within a greatly varying parental context. ” – The Film Stage May 23, 2025 Full Review It Was Just an Accident (2025) 97% B EDIT “With It Was Just an Accident, Panahi doesn’t try to simplify a complex ethical conundrum, but leaves it to humans to figure it out the only way they can – collectively, united in their reclaimed strength.” – AwardsWatch May 23, 2025 Full Review Sirāt (2025) 92% A- EDIT “Laxe’s film showcases the most rare of gifts: that of true connections and the attainability of hope at the end of the world.” – AwardsWatch May 17, 2025 Full Review Windless (2024) EDIT “But there is more to those deferrals, stand-ins, and metaphors for paternal absence—there is rawness and optimism in the way Windless paints a double portrait: of a son’s past disappointments and of the man he hopes to be.” – Reverse Shot Mar 19, 2025 Full Review Slow (2023) 93% EDIT “Slow maps out desires and dreams through minute glances, gestures, and silences. Watching it feels like falling in love. ” – Sight & Sound Mar 19, 2025 Full Review Nightbitch (2024) 60% EDIT “[A] snarling, on-the-wet-nose metaphor for parental transformation, but one that this surprisingly tender film puts to good use. ” – Sight & Sound Mar 19, 2025 Full Review The Ugly Stepsister (2025) 96% EDIT “Blichfeldt blends the more brutal folktale elements with phantasmatic longing to create a version of Cinderella where beauty is pain for some women, but life is pain for all of them.” – Sight & Sound Mar 19, 2025 Full Review Blue Moon (2025) 90% B+ EDIT ““Blue Moon” would taste like a praline dipped in melancholy... it works as a (very careful) vivisection of nostalgia as it forms a thicker crust around the idealized version of one’s memory. ” – The Playlist Mar 5, 2025 Full Review
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