Metodi Andonov, the director of The Goat Horn (Козият рог, Bulgaria, 1972), entered the cinema in the early 1960s. This particular period of socialist film production in Bulgaria is characterized by the contradictory nature of the cultural policy and the anti-Stalinist course that began in the mid-1950s. Gradually it became increasingly clear that the denial of the cult of the personality of the supreme communist leader was an element of the internal struggle for power rather than a real change in the party line. That is why here it is important to emphasize that Metodi Andonov is not a dissident. His first experience as a film director was in 1965, directing а three part TV-movie, based on the contemporary crime story by the Bulgarian writer Bogomil Raynov, who is very close to the communist leadership. At that time the 33-year-old Andonov already had a near decade long successful career as a theatre director. He proves his abilities as an inspired and insightful interpreter of Russian and Bulgarian dramaturgy. In his original productions he combined the Slavic mentality with some of the theatrical principles of Brecht, who was the only modern stage writer and director recognized at that time by the ideological censorship in Bulgaria.

Andonov’s film debut is the contemporary existential drama The White Room (Бялата стая, Bulgaria, 1968). It tells the story of a thirty-year-old scholar who fights for the freedom to seek the truth in science on his own, without regard for the authority of older colleagues or communist ideology. Paradoxically, the film is again based on a novel by Bogomil Raynov, known in the 1950s as one of the agents of dogmatism and repression against cultural figures. The White Room was the first Bulgarian film with the monological structure that was trendy at the time, breaking the strict chronological sequence of the narrative, putting the emphasis on the stream of consciousness of the protagonist. A method introduced into literature by the modern French novel, and into cinema by the films of Bergman, Fellini, and Antonioni at the end of the 1950s and the early 1960s. Andonov’s next film, There’s Nothing Better Than Bad Weather (Няма нищо по-хубаво от лошото време, Bulgaria, 1971), was a screen adaptation of a spy novel by Bogomil Raynov about a Bulgarian character, a communist version of James Bond. This series of novels was published in all Eastern Bloc countries and became extremely popular especially in the Soviet Union. Andonov proves his capabilities as an agile film director, capable of building a suspenseful plot with convincing psychological characters and original visual and editing choices.

It was his ability to work in a shortened timeframe, efficiently and at a high artistic level that led Metodi Andonov to the realization of The Goat Horn, considered by many to be the best Bulgarian film of all time. This film appeared somewhat accidentally, as even before the audience and critical success of There’s Nothing Better Than Bad Weather, Metodi Andonov received an offer from the management of the state-owned Feature Film Studio to make a film based on a script he chose himself. This is a rather unconventional proposition for the socialist production system where, especially in the heightened political climate following the events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, every film was subject to strict scrutiny at every stage of the production process, from the initial idea to the final cut. The reason for this is that, at the end of 1970, there were funds left in the budget of the state film studios which, if not invested in a new production, would be returned to the budget, and this was not a good attestation for any socialist business executive. The amount was not significant, sufficient only for low-budget production, which is why all the famous directors refused to take up the offer.

Andonov hesitates between two stories by the Bulgarian writer Nikolai Haytov from his collection of short stories entitled Divi razkazi (Wild Stories), published in 1967. In the end he chooses ‘The Goat Horn’. The most authoritative figure in Bulgarian literature at the time, the 60-year-old writer Emilian Stanev, had a very interesting assessment of the potential of this story. He says to his colleague writer, twelve years his junior: “You have stumbled upon a very original plot, there is no second like it, it rarely happens. The plots are usually repetitive, especially the love ones. There are 5-6 schemes, one triangle and that’s it. A “goat horn” is something pure, untouched by anybody. You can write on this plot a novella, even a real novel, and you’re stuck in four pages. You have to write something much longer before someone steals your stuff.”