Celebrated with an Awards Ceremony held at the National Palace of Culture, the 18th edition of Sofia International Film Festival came to an end after presenting a total of 212 films from 54 countries all around the world. Over 300 international guests visited the Bulgarian capital, amongst them directors, producers, festival directors as well as media and film experts. The festival will now travel the country with additional events and screenings. 

Focusing on the Balkan awarded films.

The president of the Balkan Competition jury, Georgian director Kakha Kikabidze along with members Srinivasa Santhanam -festival director and programmer from India- and actor Stephan A. Shterev, handed the Domaine Boyar Award for Best Balkan Film to director Mahmut Fazil Coskun and his Yozgat Blues (Turkey – Germany, 2012).

Chosen among the films in the International Competition and the Balkan Competition, the Audience Award of the 18th Sofia IFF went to Svetoslav Stoyanov’s The Last Black Sea Pirates (Bulgaria – UK, 2012).

The Best Bulgarian Feature Film Award went to the film The Judgment (Bulgaria – F.Y.R.O.M. – Germany – Croatia, 2013) by Stephan Komandarev. Elma Tataragic as the programmer of Sarajevo FF, Kiril Razlogov, programming director of Moscow IFF and Lenka Tyrpakova, programmer of Karlovy Vary IFF, consisted the jury.  

The Young Jury Award went to the Italian-Slovenian co-production Zoran, My Nephew the Idiot (2013) by Matteo Oleotto.

Bulgarian Guild of Film Critics granted its award to the Balkan Competition documentary SaroyanLand (France-Turkey-Armenia, 2012) by Lusin Dink.

The Documentary Jury handed their Special Mention to the film Life Almost Wonderful (Bulgaria – Belgium, 2013) by Svetoslav Draganov. 

We had also the Sofia Award of the Sofia Municipality given to directors Goran Paskaljevic, Georgi Djulgerov and Slovakian Dusan Hanak for their contribution to world cinema.

The 11th edition of Sofia Meetings co-production market, the annual parallel event of Sofia IFF, also closed its doors after three days of workshops, lectures and a programme presenting young and promising artists on their 1st, 2nd or 3rd project. Four of them were awarded this year. Two of them come from the Balkans:

The project Never Let It Go (Romania) by Paul Negoescu was given the Hungarian Filmlab Award for best project in the ‘Second Film Projects’ Programme and 10,000 Euro in post- production services. 

The Synchro Film, Video & Audio Award – Special Mention for project in the ‘Second Film Projects’ Programme granted 5,000 Euro in post-production services to the production of the project Nanook by Milko Lazarov, also given the Mediterranean Film Institute Award scholarship to participate to MFI Script 2 Film Workshops!