28/02/2011

The most important film festival in Bulgaria and one of the most important in Eastern Europe, the Sofia International Film Festival (SIFF) kicks off on March 4 with a programme of over 100 features, 30 documentaries and 70 shorts.

Twelve first or second features from the world over will vie for the main three trophies of the International Competition. For the first time in the SIFF's history, two of them are by Bulgarian directors: Dragomir Sholev's Shelter [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Victor Chouchkov's Tilt, both first features. Strong competition comes from three continents: Selim Gunes White as Snow (Turkey), Hossein Keshavarz’s Dog Swea (Iran), Joao Nuno Pinto’s America (Portugal), Ben Berkowitz’s Polish Bar (US) and Florian Cossen’s The Day I Was Not Born [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Germany) are some of the twelve titles in competition.

The International Competition Jury, chaired by Iceland's Fridrik Thór Fridriksson, will hand out the Best Film Grand Prix, as well as Special Jury and Best Director awards. Local productions have a shot at the Kodak Award for Best Bulgarian Feature Film and the Audience Award, while Balkan productions will compete for the No Man's Land Award For Best Balkan Film, given by the Bulgarian Guild of Film Critics. The festival will also hand out Lifetime Achievement Awards to Claudia Cardinale, Claude Lelouch and Otar Iosseliani.

The festival also organizes a short film competition for young Bulgarian directors, while this year's focus will be on French film.

In its Big Five programme, SIFF will screen highlights from five of the most important film festivals in the world: Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Sundance and Toronto.

The Cinema Today - The Masters programme will focus on the latest films of renowned directors such as Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, Tom Tykwer, Alexei Balabanov and Srdjan Karnovic, while Cinema Tomorrow - Discoveries will feature films by the most promising young directors, including Li Hongqi, winner of the Golden Leopard in 2010 for his Winter Vacation and Agnes Kocsis, whose Pal Adrienn [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Agnes Kocsis, director of P…
film profile] won the Un Certain Regard at Cannes.