site.btaFilm about Visual Artist Stoimen Stoilov to Be Screened in Vienna

The film Happiness at the Tip of a Pencil (German: Das Glück liegt auf der Spitze des Bleistifts), marking Bulgarian-born visual artist Stoimen Stoilov's 80th birthday, will premiere at Metro Kinokulturhaus in Vienna on January 19 at 3pm, the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in the Austrian capital says on its Facebook page. The film was directed by Georgi Toshev. Admission is free, but viewers are asked to register in advance at office@haus-wittgenstein.at.

Stoimen Stoilov was born in 1944 in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna. He graduated from the National Academy of Art in Sofia in 1972. He founded the International Print Biennial in Varna. In 1991, he received Austria's Herder Prize for his lifetime achievement. He settled in Vienna the same year. In 2010, he received the highest Bulgarian state honour, the Order of the Balkan Range, First Class. In 2024, the Bulgarian Culture Ministry granted Stoilov its highest distinction, the Golden Age Award, with Collar, for his contribution to Bulgarian culture and art. Works by Stoilov are owned by the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the Austrian Foreign Ministry, the National Library of France, the contemporary art fund at the Louvre Museum in Paris, the US Library of Congress in Washington DC, the New York Public Library and universities in the US and Russia.

Stoilov is known for his monumental paintings. He has also worked as an illustrator and has designed over 50 books.