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SOFIA 2016

The 20th Sofia International Film Festival is ready to kick off

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- 150 features and 50 shorts will be screened from 10-20 March

The 20th Sofia International Film Festival is ready to kick off
The Prosecutor, the Defender, the Father and His Son by Iglika Triffonova

The Sofia International Film Festival, Bulgaria’s most important film festival and one of the most popular in Eastern Europe, kicks off its anniversary edition today. As many as 150 features, among them the most recent Bulgarian productions, and 50 short films have been selected. Iglika Triffonova’s The Prosecutor, the Defender, the Father and His Son [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Iglika Triffonova
film profile
]
will mark the opening of the festival with a special screening hosted by the National Palace of Culture.

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Eighteen first and second features will compete for the “Sofia City of Film” Grand Prix, the festival’s top award. Two of the competing features come from Bulgaria, with Spain, Turkey, the Netherlands, Germany, Georgia, Israel, the UK, Ireland, the Czech Republic and Poland among the production countries in with a chance of winning awards. The winners will be announced during a gala held on 19 March. The international jury consists of Georgian director Dito Tsintsadze, FIPRESCI general secretary Klaus Eder, Golden Apricot Festival director Harutyun Khachatryan, and Bulgarian directors Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, the winners of the 2015 edition with The Lesson [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kristina Grozeva, Petar Val…
interview: Margita Gosheva
film profile
]
.

The gathering is also showcasing the newest Balkan productions in its Balkan competition, with The Miracle of Tekir [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, Face Down [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, Losers [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivaylo Hristov
film profile
]
, Xenia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Panos H. Koutras
film profile
]
and Why Me? [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tudor Giurgiu
film profile
]
among the 23 features competing for the sidebar’s award. Twenty-four titles were selected in the documentary competition.

Retrospectives including films directed by Terry Gilliam, Ted Kotcheff and Béla Tarr are just some of the highlights of this edition, with all three directors attending the festival to present their movies. Focuses on Croatia, Turkey and Iceland have also been programmed.

The 11-day event in Sofia will be followed by smaller editions in the cities of Burgas, Plovdiv and Varna. Besides the main festival, Sofia IFF has organised the 13th edition of Sofia Meetings, helping dozens of projects in development to meet new producers, festival organisers and world sales companies. Sofia Meetings kicks off on 17 March.

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