site.btaFilm Festival Presents Europe as Always Young and Creative

The Polish Institute in Sofia and Poland's Embassy in Bulgaria are organizing a European Films Festival mottoed "Europe - Always Young and Creative" between June 5 and 26.

The event, which will take place in the Summer Theatre of Sofia's Boris Garden Park with free admission, is intended to highlight the 20th anniversary of the largest enlargement in the history of the EU, when as many as ten countries:  Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, joined the bloc in 2004.

The organizers see the Festival as "an excellent opportunity to present the achievements of the young generation of film directors from various EU Member States and thus demonstrate the cultural wealth of the European community and its creative diversity".  

The Festival will open by Flying with Fins (Bulgaria, 2023), directed by Maria Averina. Another Bulgarian entry, Yana Lekarska's Because I Love Bad Weather (2024), will follow on June 6. The Hungarian-Vietnamese co-production Our Blossom (2023), directed by Dóra Szücs will be screened on June 11. Iman by Kyriakos Tofarides and Corinna Avraamidou (2022) is on the bill for June 13. German director Felix Maria Bühler's Stick Together (2023) can be seen on June 18. Fallen Leaves (directed by Aki Kaurismäki, Finland-Germany, 2023) is next, on June 19. Ukrainian director Pavlo Peleshok's Life to the Limit (2022) is billed for June 20. Thank You Guys (2023), directed by Italy's Riccardo Milani, will be on screen on June 25. The last show is Next to Nothing by Grzegorz Dębowski (Poland, 2023).

The films are provided by the State Cultural Institute at the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation, the Embassy of Cyprus, the Liszt Institute in Sofia, Goethe-Institut in Sofia, the European Parliament Liaison Office in Bulgaria, the Embassy of Ukraine, the Italian Cultural Institute, and the Polish Institute in Sofia.