Maria Bakalova was already a rising movie star in her native Bulgaria, but her role in “The Next Borat Movie” catapulted her to international stardom. Her performance as Borat’s daughter, Tutar Sagdeev, earned her more than 50 nominations at festival circles in the US and abroad, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Bakalova advocates equal representation of Eastern Europeans, as well as the normalization of foreign dialects on screen and the elimination of negative stereotypes. In 2021 she became partner in JupiterLights Pictures alongside founder Julian Kostov.
