Maria Bakalova and Hala Matar on Electra: Performing Truth, Playing with Masks

Four people converge in an Italian palazzo and descend into a weekend of secrets, lies, performance, seduction and revelations. That’s the basics of the premise of Electra, an atmospheric new indie comedy-psychodrama, yet there’s far more to the story, both on camera and behind it. Electra marks the debut of Hala Matar, the first Bahraini woman to direct a feature, and stars Maria Bakalova, the powerhouse Bulgarian actress who became a breakout star in 2020 with her fearless, captivating and largely improvised performance in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.

“The reason why I fell in love with cinema was because of independent cinema,” Bakalova says. In Electra, the Academy Award-nominated actress plays Francesca, a volatile performance artist and the current muse of fading rockstar Milo Nix (Jack Farthing, Blandings, Spencer). “I fell in love with movies created under Dogme 95,” Bakalova says, referencing the avant-garde Danish filmmaking movement founded by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. The screenplay for Electra delves into themes of deception, jealousy, vengeance and identity, and was written by Matar, along with Paul Sado and actor Daryl Wein, who also appears in the film. Wein stars as Dylan Andrews, a mystery man posing as an entertainment journalist to steal a painting from from Milo — though his motivations go far deeper than greed. “I love the idea of something that feels like The Talented Mr. Ripley to a degree,” Bakalova says. “It’s such a complex story, it’s difficult to be described with just a logline. And knowing that there were going to be people that will constantly create got me excited to be a part of it. And we did that. We lived together and we were creating in the moment.” 

“A lot of films that come out of the Middle East by Arab filmmakers — the audience expects them to be one thing. I wanted to make sure that I’m doing something completely different.”

For Matar, the project came about rather unexpectedly. “I was in Sicily on vacation,” Matar says. “The friend I was with, her name is Pia, owns a fashion line and wanted me to shoot a film in her godmother’s palazzo outside of Rome, just for her brand, like a short film. And that’s kind of how it all happened. I fell in love with the place.” What was intended as a brief fashion project quickly evolved. Matar shared photos of the location with Wein, who quickly crafted the concept of the film. “We were just like, ‘Maybe we should see if we could do a feature there instead’,” Matar says. “We were both inspired by The Talented Mr. Ripley, and I always wanted to write about people who are trying to be other people, people behind masks.” In a delicious bit of irony, despite the location being the inspiration for the film, Matar ended up shooting in an entirely different home. “I still think of my friend who offered me the place, even though we couldn’t use it,” Matar says. “I was like, ‘Thank you so much, we wouldn’t have made the movie.’”

For Bakalova, it was Matar’s vision — and the ethos of the project — that drew her in. “The whole story behind it for me was mainly because of her,” Bakalova says. “We had a meeting… we were talking about the idea of creating something together, living in the same space, sharing space with the DP and, while having dinner, bringing the camera and shooting something, talking about ideas and living and breathing within this piece.” Bakalova’s Francesca is both muse and mystique: a woman who performs not only on stage but in every interaction, cloaking herself in charisma, danger and disarming vulnerability. It’s a part that resonates with Bakalova’s own experiences with acting. After initially aspiring to be a singer as young as age six, Bakalova injured her vocal cords at age twelve. “That was the moment when I recovered that I didn’t want to be me,” Bakalova says. “I wanted to be somebody else… It’s a little bit of a Catch-22 situation, because wanting to escape your reality, you get to know more about yourself.” Despite this desire to become someone else, the 28-year old actress has a pet peeve about those who mischaracterize actors as skilled liars. “Actors don’t lie. They say the truth,” Bakalova says, noting that an actor’s job is really to find the deeper truth and reality in any material that they are given. “Sometimes truths that are difficult to swallow, sometimes truths that need to be said, sometimes questions that need to be asked,” Bakalova says. 

While there’s a lot of truth in Electra, the film is a mix of diverse elements and tones, and Matar embraces that complexity, weaving comedy, drama and psychological tension throughout the film. “In general, those are the types of films I try to make,” Matar says. “There is some heaviness in this movie, and I think you need to mix it with levity. Otherwise, I feel like the audience won’t go there. Or me — I wouldn’t go there.” Matar had another reason for wanting to push boundaries with Electra, and that was her desire to subvert expectations, categorization, leaning into genre fluidity as much as character ambiguity. “A lot of films that come out of the Middle East by Arab filmmakers — the audience expects them to be one thing. I wanted to make sure that I’m doing something completely different,” Matar says. 

“We were both inspired by The Talented Mr. Ripley, and I always wanted to write about people who are trying to be other people, people behind masks.”

As Electra bows in limited theatrical release and streaming on demand, it’s only one of many projects on Bakalova’s slate in a very busy period that began with a return to Bulgarian cinemas with Triumph, a dark comedy that was the Bulgarian entry for the 2024 Academy Awards. “I’m about to go to Chicago to shoot a movie in two weeks,” Bakalova says. “I made a movie with Kenneth Branagh and Ryan Reynolds… Then I have a beautiful British-Irish movie called Learning to Breathe Under Water with Rory Kinnear… a comedy with Zach Cherry called All Night Wrong… an animation called The Bad Guys 2… and a sci-fi drama with David Strathairn called O Horizon coming out in fall.” This sort of schedule leaves little time for rest, though Bakalova isn’t overly worried. “I think sleep is overrated,” Bakalova says with a laugh, which is quickly followed by a cringe. “I’m afraid that I sound like somebody I don’t want to sound like, to not appreciate sleep that much. Maybe I’ll regret that later.” 

If Electra is any indication, Bakalova and Matar are both wide awake and vibrant. Two highly driven and immensely artists, connected by a passion for pushing boundaries, trying on different masks and creating the kind of bold cinema that refuses to be easily defined, but will be remembered for years to come.

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