In Bulgarian

For those who know that to have a contact with numerous national cultures in the world is an endless adventure full of joy for mind and feelings, Bulgarian cinema can be such an "object of desire". Many may ask whether it exists at all. Or what kind of films could be made in that little country on the Balkans. The answer is: Bulgarian cinema started its existence at the beginning of the 20th century as a personal experience of making small feature films and at the middle of the same century it already became an industry producing about 50 feature films for cinemas and TV per annum and several times more short documentaries and cartoons. 

However, this cinema industry had to function in a communist society. It is hard to say that this was for nothing good. The ideology ruled the Bulgarian society totally and the paradox was that the communist leaders had an interest to develop the cinema industry as a form of manipulation of the people's minds. So they gave much money to build a big contemporary production studio in Sofia with modern equipment for all the stages of making a film. They gave much money for making films. They supported the education of young people in the art of cinema, they paid to accustom people to go to the cinemas and they published film magazines with many reviews by professional film critics. All these acts aiming ideological purposes resulted in the creation of a community of film makers and film critics who were educated and the most important - who were granted the right to attend international film festivals and to communicate beyond the "wall" between the socialist countries and the rest of the world. And this community silently began to use this knowledge in its work. 

Thus a kind of a hidden opposition to the official ideology was born. If you see Bulgarian films made in the 60's, 70's and 80's, you can find that their inner content is far away of the ideological prescriptions. You can also see that this unusual struggle against the communist ideology led to the creation of a special film language which turned in time, as in all other communist countries, in an extraordinary form of film culture based on a very inventive art analysis of the social reality. With its help the Bulgarian films of all kinds - features, documentaries and cartoons - began to function as an extraordinary substitute to all officially forbidden expressions of the social life such as free press, political and even economic discussions, philosophical explanations of human beings and life. I dare say that this film culture brought to life a very interesting cinema which still shows that the moviemakers face another and much different path of that of Hollywood's, going on which they can use the unexplored, deeply creative possibilities of the medium. To the Bulgarian moviemakers, however, exactly this experience turned now - in the postcommunist period, into a kind of drama. Because they couldn't quickly accept the other view on cinema - the one offered to all of the world and to our new free countries by the studios and the money of Hollywood... 

The forthcoming Web pages, to develop in due time into a database, will be of use to you to understand more about this drama, to read reviews on old and new Bulgarian films or to look for Bulgarian filmmaker's profiles. 

July 1999

"Journey To Jerusalem" in Yellow, Blue, Green - in Culture newspaper

In English with little abridgments

Pre-modern, Modern, Post-modern with The Gaps Between in KINO magazine

Spiritual Cognition in Document, Image, Sound:

"WITH EXTREME CruelTY" in KINO magazine

JULY STOYANOV in Culture newspaper

MICHAIL NEDELCHEV in Democratic Review magazine

THE POSSIBLE IMPOSSIBLE FREEDOM: "THE PEOPLE v/s LARRY FLINT" in FILM magazine

TODOR ANDREIKOV in Democratic Review magazine