The considerable investment in the full renovation of an elegant six hall multiplex with 1301 seats, located at the City Center Sofia, turns Ciné Grand Bulgaria into the third most important market player along with the Alexandra group with ten multiplexes and Cinema City with five multiplexes. According to film exhibition manager and CEO Amitab Vardaan, “The strategy is to turn the Ciné Grand multiplex into the most extravagant cinema experience in Sofia, but also to offer movies at reasonable prices throughout all days of the week, trying in this way to counteract illegal internet piracy.”

The top titles running on the multiplex screens are Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street and Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine. The younger audience can see the 3D animations Khumba by Anthony Silverston and The Free Birds by Jimmy Hayward.

The most expensive tickets are 7/8 EUR and the least expensive are 2/3 EUR.

A luxury 32 seats VIP lounge is offering extras such as blankets, food and beverages.

The first Bulgarian film to be shown commerciallyat Ciné Grand will be Rapid Reaction Corps 2, entirely financed from private sources. Produced by actor Bashar Rahal and directed by Stanislav Donchev the entertaining comedy will have its premiere on 17 January 2014.

Following the announcement that Ciné Grand’s is going to invest in “at least three multiplexes in Sofia and in towns on the Black Sea,” competing theatre owners expressed hope that “there will be no dumping on the market”.