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»Bulgarian cinema is clearly on the rebound,« enthused Stefan Kitanov, the director of the 9th Sofia International Film Festival (4-13 March 2005), when he opened the Second Sofia Meetings, a »Pitching Program/laquo; geared to accommodate directors who had already participated at SIFF or other regional festivals with a first feature film. And he added: »We expect to see 14 new Bulgarian feature films on the screen by the end of the current season.« This, in contrast to no Bulgarian feature film production in release at all back in 1999.

What’s the reason for this dramatic reversal of fortune? »Bulgaria hopes to apply for EU membership in 2006,« confirmed veteran award-winning director Georgi Djulgerov, who now as teacher and mentor at the National Film and Theater Academy has done as much as anyone to advance the cause of Bulgarian cinema at home and abroad. Three years ago, Djulgerov hit upon the idea to launch a branch of the Sofia festival for an extra week in the city of Burgas on the Black Sea. Thus, via »SIFF At the Coast« (10-18 March 2005), abetted as well by an rerun of festival hits in the renovated Cinema House in downtown Sofia until the end of March, Bulgarian cineastes turned out in droves for a month of moviegoing pleasure. Even the roundtables scheduled in the Red House »Andrey Nikolov« (an arts-and-culture center) and the talkshows organized in the Club »Na Tiasmo« (the nightly rendezvous for guests and filmmakers) were packed to the gills.

Indeed, there was much to talk about. Altogether, more than 200 features, documentaries, and short films from nearly 50 countries were programmed at the 9th SIFF in myriad sections: Main Program, Galas & Avant-Premieres, European Screen, New Norwegian Cinema, Balkan Films Showcase, German Cross-Border Productions (Goethe-Institut), Bulgarian Features, Bulgarian Shorts, British Films, Directors in Focus (Peter Greenaway, Lukas Moodysson, Srdjan Dragojevic, Pjer Zalic), World Screen, New Argentinean Cinema, Documentary Program, 3 x Blues (a trio of films on blues musicians), Special Screenings, Francois Ozon Retrospective, and Christo Christov Tribute (honoring a brilliant and sometimes controversial Bulgarian stage-and-film director from the days of socialist cinema). For those latecomers who happened to miss a film or two on the screen, a video installation filled the gap.

Arguably, since the focus at SIFF was predominantly on young filmmakers, not only in the competition but also in sidebar regional programs featuring films from all around the Balkans, the festival program mirrored the make-up of its audience in many respects. And not by chance did circa 100 directors, producers, and other film professionals show for the second round of Sofia Meetings, the aim of which was to pave the way for a second feature film from a dozen projects pitched at Sofia for development. As for the »Best Pitching Award,« this went to Dau, a Russian project to be directed by Ilya Khrzhanovsky (son of Russian animation master Andrei Khrzhanovsky), whose debut feature 4 (Russia), scripted by contentious Moscow dramatist Valdimir Sorokin, is currently making the rounds of international festivals and was one of the hot tickets in the Main Program. The Best Bulgarian Film Pitching Award went to Balkan Blus (Balkan Blues), to be directed by the talented Zornitsa Sophia, whose Mila om Mars (Mila from Mars) (2004) had been awarded the Kodak Prize for Best Bulgarian Film at last year’s Sofia film festival.

Fittingly, the International Jury was composed of young professionals: actresses Katja Riemann (Germany), Assumpta Serna (Spain), and Vessela Kazakova (Bulgaria), joined by directors Srdjan Dragojevic (Serbia & Montenegro) and Siegfried (France). The Stella Artois Grand Prix went to Lenny Abrahamson’s Adam & Paul (Ireland), a funny, hard-hitting, yet tender tragicomedy about two young Dublin junkies who, on this particular day, have reached the end of the line in their pursuit of a fix. The first feature by a director of successful TV commercials, Adam & Paul also received the FIPRESCI (International Critics) Award. The runner-up Special Jury Award was shared by Saman Salur’s Sakenine sarzamine sokoot (From the Land of Silence) (Iran) and Srdjan Koljevic’s Sivi kamion crvene boje (Red Colored Grey Truck) (Serbia & Montenegro). Shot at a desert outpost in Iran, From the Land of Silence is remarkable for its striking images of natural beauty ­ scenes, however, that deceive, for the sun-baked terrain is also a survival playground for two young boys who find ways to connive, bluff, and steal from passing truck drivers.

As for Red Colored Grey Truck, the debut feature confirms the auteur credentials of a visionary Belgrade writer-director. Far from being a newcomer to the richly inventive Belgrade film scene, Srdjan Koljevic had penned screenplays in the past for various Serb directors, scripts that were acclaimed for their originality by knowledgeable insiders on the Belgrade scene. Indeed, his contribution to »New Yugoslav Cinema« (also known as »Belgrade Resistance Directors«) sketches the life-and-times of a country in the throes of change: Ljubisa Samardzic’s Sky Hook (2000) and Natasha (2001), Oleg Novkovic’s Normal People (2000) and Why Have You Left Me? (1993), and Gorcin Stojanovic’s The Hornet (1998) and Premeditated Murder (1996). Over the years, for reasons known only to himself, Koljevic decided to hold on to his first screenplay, Red Colored Grey Truck, waiting for the chance to direct it himself. A wacky road movie about the numbing, farcical political shenanigans that somehow prompted the Third Balkan War, the truck in the title zigzags across an ex-Yugoslavia from Belgrade to Dubrovnik in the explosive summer of 1991. At the wheel of the truck are a pair of idiotic misfits: a color-blind country bumpkin without a driver’s license and a birdbrain floozy fleeing from her macho boyfriend and her own pregnancy. Red Colored Grey Truck has as many surprising twists as there are dips and turns on the backroads to nowhere.

The backbone of New Bulgarian Cinema was found in the documentary program. Andrei Paounov»s Georgi i peperudite (Georgi and the Butterflies), awarded at the 2004 Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival, sketches the hilarious adventures of an incurable dreamer, the genial, loveable head of the »Home for Psychologically Challenged Men« (read: schizophrenics). To keep his patients occupied, Georgi turns the yard at the home into a farm for raising snails, breeding ostriches, and coaxing butterflies to produce silk (!).

Just as fascinating was Vassil Karkelanov»s Nestinars ­ posvetenite na ognya (Nestinars ­ Fires of Devotion), a chronicle of a fire ritual in the village of Bulgary that traces its origin back to pagan days but was later adopted by a Christian cult. According to a legend, when heaven and earth meet at a point on June 3rd on the Feast of St. Konstantin ­ namely in the isolated mountainous village of Bulgary ­ women can dance unharmed on coals of fire to the beat of drums, and the »nestinars« are thus endowed with miraculous strength to foretell the future. By matching archival footage from documentaries made in the past to present-day soothsayer phenomena related to the same »fires of devotion,« Karkelanov has posed some intriguing philosophical questions in Nestinars about the thin line over the ages between Christian spirituality and pagan religiosity. By the same token, Krasimir Krumov»s Smislt na zhivota (The Meaning of Life) depicts the search of a 12-year-old boy to find the meaning of life by posing the same question to his mother, (a biologiy teacher), the local priest, a psychiatrist, and an astronomer ­ each time receiving a different answer.

Several short films by talented newcomers were warmly applauded at Sofia. The Jameson Short Film Award went to Dragomir Sholev’s Predi zhibota, sled smrtta (Before Life, After Death), a 15-minute sketch of a POW bargaining for his life by playing a reprise from a Beethoven symphony on his violin. Svetla Tsotsorkova, whose Zhivot s Sofia (Life with Sophia) won the Jameson Short Film Award at last year’s festival, presented her new short feature, Mayka moya (My Mother), a bittersweet tale about a fragile mother-daughter relationship. And in Lost and Found, the critically acclaimed omnibus film by filmmakers who had attended last year's Berlinale Talent Campus, the first round of applause went to Nadejda Koseva’s opening short Ritual (The Ritual), a spirited wedding ritual that links via a mobile phone the parents in a traditional village celebration with the young married couple on their honeymoon at Niagara Falls.

The festival opened and closed with two warmly received audience attractions. Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake, winner of the Golden Lion at Venice, is the affecting real-life story of a woman’s devastating downfall over the questionable moral issue on abortion. And Goran Paskaljevic’s San zimske noci (A Midwinter Night's Dream), a critical hit at Rotterdam, is a poignant drama about a man released from prison who tries to reclaim his place in society by caring for the spastic daughter of a working mother. As for the Bulgarian feature films showcased at Sofia, Radoslav Spassov’s Otkradnati ochi (Stolen Eyes) received the Kodak Award for Best Bulgarian Film. The story of a young Turkish woman who refuses to change her name and identity during the so-called »regeneration process« in postwar Bulgaria, Stolen Eyes is directed by a well known cameraman, whose preference for the visual elements in this historical drama carries more weight than the thematic content. Pretty much the same can be said about the narrative deficiencies in Stanimir Trifonov’s Yepepalyvane (Burning Out), a fine crafted film that merited cameraman Emil Hristov the Prize of Bulgarian Cinematographers for Best Feature Film Cinematography. The story of a lecherous State Security Policeman who succeeds to destroy the love between a Bulgarian woman and her Italian husband, Stolen Eyes takes on depth when the story shifts to the concentration camp.

Lastly, some breaking news made media headlines. According to an informed source, the Boyana Studios are about to be sold to one of three bidders: the Bavaria Studios in Munich, the Earling Studios in London, an production investment company in Los Angeles. Apparently, at least the technical facilities and the trained labor force at the Boyana Studios under the able management of Evgeni Mihailov are an attractive international entity. Whether this move would help local film production is another question altogether.

Ron Holloway