site.btaSmolyan to Host 4th Rhodope International Documentary Film Fest

The 4th Rhodope International Documentary Film Fest (RIFE), mottoed "Listen to Music!", will take place in Smolyan between July 11 and 14, said media liaison officer Mihaela Lyutskanova.

Admission to the screenings will be free. Those unable to attend in person can watch an online selection of 18 of the films on Neterra TV PLUS between July 11 and 31.

Thirty-six films from Bulgaria, the US, Serbia, Poland, Tunisia, Portugal, Argentina, Azerbaijan and many other countries have been submitted to the Festival's international documentary feature, middle-length and short competitions. Germany, Greece and Turkey are the focus countries this year.

The official opening will be held in front of the Regional Library on July 11 with an open-air screening of Sven Halfar's Heaven Can Wait - We Live Now. The German documentary portrays a Hamburg choir entirely composed of vibrant elderly members.

The programme includes 32 Sounds, an immersive feature documentary and profound sensory experience from Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Sam Green of the US. It will have its Bulgarian premiere in Smolyan.

Also on the feature programme bill are Life Is Not a Competition, But I'm Winning (Germany, about the sports achievement of women Olympians), Flotacija (Serbia, directed by Eluned Zoe Aiano and Alesandra Tatic), Maria Averina's Flying with Fins (Bulgaria), and Anneta Papathanassiou's Laughing in Afghanistan (Greece).

A highlight in the middle-length programme is Searching for Rodakis by Kerem Soyyilmaz (Denmark/Turkey), about the forced population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923.

The shorts programme includes Sister of Mine by Polish director Mariusz Rusinski, winner of the 2023 IDFA Festival. The director tries to find out what happened in the whole family life that his own sister Zuzia fell into addiction. In the same section are Violeta Valcheva's In Between (Bulgaria), Georges Vanev's The Martenitsa (Belgium). 

The 2024 edition has two new sections: Focus New Bulgarian Cinema (with Kasiel Noah Asher's Soldier of Fortune, Dimitar Kotsev - Shosho's Man under Surveillance, and Borislav Kolev's Theodore Ushev: Unseen Connections) and Music in Film: A Bulgarian Panorama (Kostadin Bonev's The Tin Soldier, Andrey Chertov's Once upon a Time in Paris, and Tsvetan Dragnev's Balkan Black Box).

An international jury, consisting of Nathalie David, Bernd Buder, Vesela Marchevska, Vladimir Andreev, Ebru Thwaites Diken and Kornel Miglus, will determine the awards: a Grand Prix for Best Documentary Feature, a Featurette Film, an Award for Best Featurette, and a Short Film Award for Best Short Film.

The audience will vote for their favorite Competition entry, which will receive the Audience Award.