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GOLDEN ROSE 2021

The 39th Golden Rose Film Festival to present 12 Bulgarian features in competition

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- A further 15 titles will duke it out in the shorts competition, while the Open Horizons parallel section includes six other films

The 39th Golden Rose Film Festival to present 12 Bulgarian features in competition
Uncle Claus by Ivaylo Penchev

The Golden Rose Film Festival, taking place from 23-29 September in the Black Sea coastal city of Varna and organised by the Bulgarian National Film Center, will showcase the entire slate of Bulgarian fiction production – encompassing features and short films – created since the last edition in 2020. The competition programme includes 12 features and 15 short films, with six additional productions in the Open Horizons section.

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The line-up includes minority co-productions as well, such as Levan Koguashvili’s Brighton 4th [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Levan Koguashvili
film profile
]
, co-produced by Art Fest, and the opening film, Only Human [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Igor Ivanov
film profile
]
, helmed by Macedonian director Igor Ivanov and staged by Bulgarian production company Gala Film. Also, a selection of four restored archive films (made between 1926 and 1940), curated by the Bulgarian National Film Archive under the title “Summer in Old Bulgaria”, will be shown for the first time in Varna as part of the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (ACE)’s “A Season of Classic Films” initiative, supported by the Creative Europe - MEDIA programme.

Among the 12 contenders for the grand prize are mainstream titles by directors with a proven audience-orientated track record, such as Martin Makariev’s In the Heart of the Machine, Victor Bojinov's The Naked Truth About Zhiguli Band [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
and Ivaylo Penchev’s Uncle Claus, as well as several arthouse titles: theatre director Marius Kurkinski’s A Twisted World, Borislav Kostov’s second feature, I Don’t Like You, and Dragomir Sholev’s third feature, Fishbone [+see also:
interview: Dragomir Sholev
film profile
]
. Four feature debuts will be competing in the Best Debut category – popular actor Alexander Kossev’s Petya of My Petya, documentary directors Svetoslav Draganov and Andrey Paounov’s first features, Humble [+see also:
film review
film profile
]
and January [+see also:
film review
film profile
]
, and Pavel G Vesnakov’s German Lessons [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
. The latter already had its world premiere at last year’s Cairo International Film Festival, where it received the Best Actor Award (for Julian Vergov), while the other two competition films – Kamen Kalev’s February [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, and Vessela Kazakova and Mina Mileva’s Women Do Cry [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova
film profile
]
– were selected for the Cannes Film Festival in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

The jury deciding on the awards in both the feature and short competitions consists of film and media expert Professor Dr Ivo Draganov (chair), actress Irmena Chichikova, art critic and researcher Plamena Dimitrova-Racheva, Cypriot art critic, artist, director and producer Diomides Nikita, and the director of the Molodist International Film Festival, Andriy Khalpakhchi.

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