Would you rather be stuck in Hell with Jesus or Heaven with Donald Trump? This is just one of the questions that the flamboyant Bulgarian performance artist, singer-songwriter and queer activist Ivo Dimchev routinely asks audiences in this engaging but elusive documentary profile from Bulgaria-born, US-based director Kristina Nikolova.
Dimchev has other queries too, of a more pornographic nature, deliberately testing Nikolova’s taste limits in places. Even so, he emerges here more as a complex but cuddly family entertainer than as a confrontational provocateur. Screening in competition at Sarajevo Film Festival this week, In Hell With Ivo is light on factual detail but still a compelling snapshot of a charismatic chameleon.
Though he began his performing career in avant-garde theatre, Dimchev built his current global profile during Covid-19 lockdown by playing more than 400 low-key, eccentric home concerts to intimate living-room crowds. These shows went viral, earning the singer an international cult following. He may have an acid wit, an outlandish wig collection and an ego to rival Freddie Mercury, but he also comes across in Nikolova’s film as a sensitive, poetic, empathetic soul skilled at writing intensely poignant songs that often move his captive audiences to tears. His secret weapon is his luminous vibrato voice, which recalls Anohni / Anthony and the Johnsons in its creamy velvet texture and quietly piercing emotional force.
As Dimchev drags his keyboard from Sofia to New York and Los Angeles, performing both in Bulgarian and fluent English, Nikolova probes gently at the tender emotional wounds beneath his camp, bawdy, sharp-tongued stage persona. In Hell With Ivo does not shy away from the dark hinterland behind the diva pose, including an earlier suicide attempt during a traumatic treatment session for HIV. Dimchev also insists his socially conservative father was physically abusive to him throughout his childhood, while his mother did nothing to protect him.
And yet both parents feature heavily in Nikolova’s documentary, sharing generally positive feelings about their son as he performs for them at home, quizzing them about his upbringing and sexuality. Dimchev’s father denies being homophobic, but half-jokes they he would only attend his son’s wedding to another man if a “court summons” demanded his presence. Whether these impromptu family therapy sessions proved cathartic for anyone is hard to gauge, but respect is due to everyone for being so candid on camera. In an extra tragicomic twist, both Mr and Mrs Dimchev cheerfully admit to being avid Donald Trump fans.
But while In Hell With Ivo does touch on painful memories, there are plenty of light-hearted interludes and sparkly digressions in the mix too. On a pilgrimage to the US, we see Dimchev hilariously busking in New York City until baffled security guards move him away. He comes into his own playing a private concert for moneyed bohemians in the Hollywood Hills, then parties on at the humbler home of a taxi driver he met en route from the airport. Sweet footage of him composing songs with his California-based nephew Alexander underscores his effortless power to charm all ages.
Nikolova captures some impressively raw confessional chats with Dimchev, despite falling out with him several times during the shoot, but her freewheeling approach to this material could have benefited from a little more journalistic rigour. Extra biographical detail on his journey from experimental theatre to DIY cabaret star, his private life, his spells living abroad, his appearance on a TV talent show judged by Simon Cowell and more would have been welcome. Some wider insights into Bulgaria’s LGBTQ community, which faces bigger daily challenges than their counterparts in western Europe, might also have lent some much-needed political context to Dimchev’s defiant queerness. In Hell With Ivo is great at giving us a front-row view of a fascinating artist, but it lacks a wider perspective on what is happening offstage.
Director, screenwriter: Kristina Nikolova
Cinematography: Julian Atanassov, Alexander Stanishev
Editing: Anastas Petkov
Music: Ivo Dimchev
Producers: Georgi Nikolov, Kristina Nikolova
Production companies: LunaClipse Media (US), Magic Shop (Bulgaria)
World sales: LunaClipse Media
Venue: Sarajevo Film Festival (Documentary Competition)
In English, Bulgarian
80 minutes
