Film Festival Brings World-Class Cinema to Bulgaria
BalkanTravellers.com
The 14th edition of the Sofia International Film Festival will take place between March 5 and 14 in Sofia, with an additional programme between March 15 and 25 in Sofia. In addition to the traditional programmes, running in Plovdiv and Burgas, the Festival will visit over 10 other Bulgarian cities, including Blagoevgrad, Stara Zagora, Ruse, Sliven, Gabrovo, Haskovo, Kurjali and Lovetch.
The festival will screen nearly 100 feature, 30 documentary and more than 50 short films, in a variety of thematic festival categories, including: an International Competition, featuring 12 films from Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain/Uruguay, the United Kingdom); Cinema Today – The Masters; The Big Five - with films at the world’s most prestigious festivals; Cinema Tomorrow – Discoveries; Special Screenings; Balkan Competition; a Bulgarian Focus, including new Bulgarian feature films, new Bulgarian documentary films and Bulgarian feature films from the past decade; Bulgarian Short Films for the Jameson Short Film Award; a Retrospective of director Sergei Solovyov; Documentary Programme; and a Short Films Programme.
This year, the Sofia International Film Festival marks its 10th anniversary as an international film festival, without the music-orientated theme of the first four years.
Over 200 foreign guests are expected to join the festival this year, some of them also participating in the seventh edition of the Sofia Meetings programme aimed at gathering the elite of the European filmmaking industry. The projects for first, second and third feature films will be presented in public to fund managers, producers, distributors, institution representatives and journalists. The Bulgarian and Balkan films will be screened before an audience of festival directors and people in charge of film selection.
Since 1997 more than 1, 500 feature films and documentaries have been screened as part of the Sofia International Film Festival.
Read more about Bulgaria on BalkanTravellers.com
Use BalkanTravellers.com's tips to organize your trip to Bulgaria
Epicure
Kosovo
Kosovo Winemaking Badly Hit After Independence and Serbia’s Boycott
November 2009 | Kosovo’s total wine exports have decreased by more than half Full Story
Curiosity Chest
Kosovo
The Balkans: Natural Born Historians
The obsession with history is so commonplace on the Balkans that local people do not even notice it. For outsiders, however, it quickly becomes a part of the experience of being precisely in the Balkans and nowhere else. Raymond Detrez, a Belgian scholar of Bulgarian and Balkan Studies, describes this sometimes entertaining and other times annoying, and even dangerous, social phenomenon. Full Story
Useful Reads
Greece
In Sfakia: Passing Time in the Wilds of Crete (2008) | By Peter Trudgill
Crete has long been acknowledged as one of the most singular and unique parts of Greece. Its people keep a fierce hold on their traditions, customs and history. Practically a country of its own, this vast island looms over all others in Greece. Nevertheless, as In Sfakia author Peter Trudgill aptly notes in his preface, “some parts of Crete are more special than others, and Sfakia, on the remote south coast, is certainly one of those.” Full Story
Music
Macedonia
Macedonia: Esma Redžepova's Passion for Humanity
"A Gypsy from the city of Skopje", as she calls herself, Esma Redžepova has more than 40 years of singing and humanitarian efforts under her belt. Full Story
-
Photogalleries
-
A Perfect Shot
Koprivshtitsa Fair, Bulgara. Photographs by Neva Micheva
In Homo Urbanus Europeanus, exhibited May 9-24 in front of the National Theatre in Sofia, Jean-Marc Caracci presents his photographs of people in the urban environment of European capitals.
RED&WHITE SOFIA. On the 1st of March Bulgarians say goodbye to the winter. They buy each other red&white threads to carry around until they see a stork and spring can begin. Photography by Lode Desmet
BULGARIA D'OR: The Bulgarian countryside, patinated with the noble golden dust of the autumn. Photographs by Lode Desmet
360 degrees Bulgaria, an exhibition by photographer Alexandar Ivanov, is on display at the Sea Garden in Varna until August 28. It will be shown at Plovdiv’s Central Square from Sept 5.
The exhibition Photographs of a Trip Through Bulgaria by Hungarian photographer András Balla can be seen in Sofia's Hungarian Cultural Institute, at Aksakov 16 Street, until August 22
Instant Spring in Sofia | Photographs by Lode Desmet
Off-the-season Beauty of Bulgaria's Black Sea Coast | Photographs by Adelina Iliev
Bulgaria's Northern Black Sea Coast
Photographs by Albena Shkodrova
excellent smugs
