Tonislav Hristov, a multifaceted filmmaker, was born in Bulgaria in 1978 and has since established a dual residence in Finland and Bulgaria.
Hristov's professional journey began with the direction of his first documentary, Family Fortune, in 2008. This collaborative effort was produced by YLE and the Bulgarian National Television.
In 2011, Hristov made his feature film debut with Rules of Single Life, which successfully transcended linguistic and cultural barriers to secure distribution in both Finland and Bulgaria. The film's accolades included the Best Documentary award at the Sofia International Film Festival and screenings at a variety of prominent film festivals, such as the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival and the Sarajevo International Film Festival.
Hristov's subsequent projects have been met with widespread critical acclaim and a rich festival circuit presence. Soul Food Stories, released in 2013, earned a nomination for Best Documentary in the medium-length competition at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival and was also shortlisted for the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
The documentary Love and Engineering, which premiered in 2014, received screenings at the New York-based Tribeca Film Festival and the Toronto-based Hot Docs, as well as the Visions du Réel festival in Nyon, Switzerland, where it won the audience award at the Doc Point section.
In 2015, Hristov's documentary Once Upon a Dream - A Journey to the Last Spaghetti Western premiered at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
The documentary The Good Postman, released in 2016, was selected for the feature-length main competition at the IDFA festival in Amsterdam and earned nominations for Best International Documentary at both the Sundance Film Festival and the Shanghai International Film Festival. Furthermore, The Good Postman was nominated for the European Film Awards in 2017.
In 2019, Hristov's documentary The Magic Lives of V premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and continued to receive widespread festival exposure, including screenings at the Berlinale Generation+ festival.
Tonislav Hristov's feature film, The Good Driver, was completed in 2022 and premiered at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival later that year. The film made its Scandinavian premiere at the Göteborg Film Festival in 2023 and won two awards at the Sofia International Film Festival in the same year.
Hristov's latest documentary, The Last Seagull, has recently premiered at the CPH:DOX and Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival.
