Bulgaria’s most important film industry event Sofia Meetings postpones its 19th edition to the early summer. The organisers promise that the well-known formats, mostly related to first and second film projects, will be back on 6-12 June 2022.
The festival will also screen selected titles in Bulgaria’s second largest city Plovdiv (17-27 March 2022) and in Varna (18-25 March 2022). The town of Burgas will starts its festival programme on 31 March 2022.
The eminent screenwriter and author Angel Wagenstein will be honoured for his exceptional contribution to the art of cinema. In the year of his 100th anniversary he will get the Sofia Prize of the Sofia Municipality. The official ceremony will also include the screening of the digitally restored Cannes 1959 Grand Jury Prize winner Stars. The film will remind the exceptional collaboration between the screenwriter Wagenstein and the cult German director Konrad Wolf.
The British film director Tony Palmer will also receive a recognition, this time it will be the 26th SFF edition Special Award.
A retrospective entitled Women in cinema will illustrate this year's festival theme. The films will be shown before the official opening on 10 March 2022, with the French Both Sides of the Blade directed by Claire Denis and produced by Curiosa Films.
Two Bulgarian debuts have been selected for the main international competition: Andrey Paunov’s January coproduced by Bulgaria’s Portokal, Portugal’s Terratreme Filmes and Luxembourg's Tarantula, and Svetoslav Draganov’s Humble, coproduced by Bulgaria’s Cineaste Maudit Production with Romania’s Parada Film and Digital Cube.
The international jury will be headed by Bulgarian film directress Iglika Triffonova and will also include four more film directors: Lech Majewski from Poland, Oleg Sentsov from Ukraine, Radivoje Andrić from Serbia and Zlatina Rousseva from Bulgaria/Belgium.
International Competition:
The Windseeker (Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia)
Directed by Mihai Sofronea
Produced by Libra Film Productions
Coproduced by Chouchkov Brothers, Living Pictures (Serbia), Romanian Film Centre
Supported by the Bulgarian National Film Center, Film Center Serbia, Creative Europe MEDIA Programme
The Den (Italy)
Directed by Beatrice Baldacci
Wolf (Ireland, Poland)
Directed by Nathalie Biancheri
Coproduced by Lava Films
Wild Roots (Hungary, Slovakia)
Directed by Hajni Kis
Produced by Proton Cinema
Coproduced by MPhilms
Supported by the National Film Institute Hungary, Slovak Audiovisual Fund
The Absent Director (Iran)
Directed by Arvand Dashtaray
A Love Song (USA)
Directed by Max Walker-Silverman
Miss Osaka (Denmark, Norway, Japan)
Directed by Daniel Dencik
Time of Impatience (Turkey)
Directed by Aydin Orak
Humble (Bulgaria, Romania)
Directed by Svetoslav Draganov
Produced by Cineaste Maudit Production
Coproduced by Contrast Films, Parada Film, Digital Cube and Romanian National Television
Sonata (Poland)
Directed by Bartosz Blaschke
Produced by Mediabrigade
Supported by Polish Film Institute
Toubab (Germany, Senegal)
Directed by Florian Dietrich
January (Bulgaria, Portugal, Luxembourg)
Directed by Andrey Paunov
Produced by Portokal
Coproduced by Terratreme Filmes, Tarantula
Supported by Bulgarian National Film Center, Creative Europe MEDIA Programme
