28/04/2008

Bulgarian cinema is being honoured abroad again, this time in the Italian capital, which plays host to the Festa del cinema bulgaro from April 29-May 3.

Eleven films introduce Rome audiences to the world of Bulgarian cinema, in an eclectic selection that includes four documentaries, as well as feature dramas, epics and comedies.

Bulgarian Minister of Culture, actor Stefan Danailov, and the manager of the Bulgarian National Film Centre, Alexander Grozev, will attend the opening night at the Casa del Cinema. Besides kicking off the gala, they will also present the first feature of the program, After the End of the World (1998), an epic directed by Ivan Nichev and starring the minister himself in a search for lost times and a lost Balkan world.

Two of the films reflect Bulgarian-Italian relations in very different, yet universal stories: The Taviani brothers’ The Lark Farm [+see also:
trailer
film profile], an Italian/Bulgarian/French/Spanish/UK co-production of 2007 set in the early 1900s, and Stefan Moskov’s The Interpreter of Black and White Films, a documentary about a 78-year-old film dubber for Sofia’s Odeon Cinema who finally gets to meet her idols.

After opening night, the event moves to its main location, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, which will host the remaining evening screenings. First up is The Interpreter…., followed by Monkeys in Winter (2006), Maria Andronova’s drama about three Bulgarian women in three different moments of the 20th century and the way their destinies face a hostile history.

For the complete program of the festival, held under the patronage of the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture, click here here.