Produced and organised by the Sofia National Palace of Culture, Cinemania returns to its normal rhythm with over 30 titles. Three of them are dedicated to musicians (Cesária Évora, David Bowie and Leonard Cohen), while 11 come from the biggest international film festivals and include Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness, Tarik Saleh’s Boy from Heaven, Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, and Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin.

A major event of the festival is the screening of Michele Placido’s Caravaggio’s Shadow. Popular in Bulgaria for decades, Placido will be present in Sofia and will personally introduce his film.

The festival will open with Zornitsa Sophia’s Mother, coproduced by Bulgaria’s MQ Pictures, Germany’s Ostlicht Filmproduktion and Croatia’s Focus Media.

The tradition of honouring the memory of famous film personalities continues with screenings dedicated to Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Ugo Tognazzi, Vittorio Gassman, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Louis Trintignant, while the French Cultural Institute in Sofia returns to Cinemania with seven films offering original views on the contemporary world, as well as with four classic films.

According to Vladimir Trifonov, Chief Film Programmer of the National Palace of Culture, “all films at this year's Cinemania will be shown in Bulgaria for the first time”.