Sofia International Film Festival

Sofia International Film Festival

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For 16th year Sofia International Film Festival will gather together in Sofia films, guests, stars, journalists and cinema fans from 9th until 18th March 2012. Featured in Variety’s Top 50 of cinema festivals, the event presents Bulgaria to the world as the host one of the important film festivals in Europe and takes place annually in March. What started as a thematic music film festival, went through 15 previous editions to become the cinema event of the year, bringing the current world cinema trends to the domestic viewers in Bulgaria and the latest in Bulgarian cinema to the rest of the world.

Since 1997 more than 1,600 feature films and documentaries have been screened within the festival’s framework. More than 1,000 distinguished guests have attended, including established professionals such as Wim Wenders, Volker Schlondorff, Katja Riemann and Karl Baumgartner (Germany), Alan Parker, Peter Greenaway, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Tony Palmer and David Mackenzie (United Kingdom), Nikita Mikhalkov, Andrei Konchalovsky, Karen Shakhnazarov and Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov (Russia), Jiri Menzel, Jan Sverak, Jan Hrebejk and Petr Zelenka (Czech Republic), Emir Kusturica (Yugoslavia), Krzysztof Zanussi (Poland), Otar Iosseliani (Georgia), Jean-Claude Carriere, Agnes Varda, Siegfried and Jacques Dorfmann (France), Assumpta Serna (Spain), Bent Hamer and Unni Straume (Norway), Jafar Panahi and Babak Payami (Iran), Jerry Schatzberg, Michael Wadleigh and Lech Kowalski (USA), Jos Stelling (the Netherlands), Mika Kaurismaki (Finland), Friðrik Þór Friðriksson (Iceland), Lone Scherfig (Denmark), Kornel Mundruczo (Hungary), Goran Markovic, Goran Paskaljević, Radivoje Andric, Dusan Milic, Srđan Karanović and Srđan Dragojević (Serbia) and many others.
The festival is organized by Art Fest under the auspices of the Municipality of Sofia and in partnership with the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture, the National Palace of Culture, the National Film Center and the Bulgarian National Television with the support of the MEDIA programme of the European Commission, national and foreign cultural institutes and sponsors.
For its 10th anniversary as an international cinema event in the year 2010 named Year of Bulgarian Cinema, Sofia International Film Festival received as present the recognition from FIAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Associations) - it was accredited as competitive festival specialized in first and second films. Since its creation the director of the festival has been Stefan Kitanov.
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Sofia International Film Festival's Blogs


Juan Torres: “I am someone that can`t stop moving.”

If I ask your friends to describe you, what would they say? They would say that I am someone that can`t stop moving. Combined with my cinema profession in Madrid I play also on a latin music...


THE AWARDS of the 16th Sofia International Film Festival

The official programme of the 16th Sofia International Film Festival will end tonight with the gala screening of Borislav Kolev's documentary debut Stoichkov. The festival presented a...


Mira Staleva: “Jamie King will present the platform for online distribution VODO”

How did “Sofia Meetings” exact­ly help in the production of movies of young Bulgarian filmmakers and in finding partners? It helped in establishing contacts with extremely helpful and ...


Simon Davidson: “To shoot during the night is very difficult ...”

Mr. Davidson, how did the story of "The Odds" appear actually? Everything started from an article I read several years ago – about 17-year high school students in Singapore, infatuated with...


Jordan Todorov: “The most successful Bulgarian in Hollywood, we’ve never heard of”

Let’s start with that – what do actually Stephen Aposolof’s “dirty movies” mean? Once this type of movies that Apostolof has made, were called “dirty movies” – that is to be distinguished...


Nuri Bilge Ceylan: "I watch all kinds of films, but as a viewer I love films for children most"

You chose to go with your team to some villages near Sofia. Did you find any interesting places? We toured several villages across the gorge of the Iskar River. I think the most interesting...


Eran Kolirin: “My filmis permeated by a sense of insecurity”

Let’s start with your character, Oded, who at one point began to question his everyday life... One of the things I love the most about cinema is that sometimes the most mundane things, if...


The Young Jury of SIFF is already taking notes on films in the cinema halls

This year Sofia International Film Festival has a Young Jury as well. We have invited the film fans of 25 years of age and younger who reside in Sofia and are willing to dedicate March to...


The International Jury expects bold and original films from the International Competition

Today the festival center Matti'D was invaded by the directors David Mackenzie, Dragomir Sholev, Jan Cvitković and the producer Marc Baschet from the International feature films jury. Mackenzie and...


Jan Cvitković about “Archeo”: “I wanted to make a film, not a coated story”

Undoubtedly one of the most distinctive and original directors in Slovenian cinema, Jan Cvitković, is an old friend of SIFF. Among the many international festival awards that his films Bread and...