Books on the New Bulgarian Cinema Launched at Golden Rose 2021 Festival, Varna

The Screen Arts Department, Institute of Art Studies, BAS will present as a sidebar to Golden Rose 2021 Bulgarian Feature Film Festival three books published under the Post-totalitarian Bulgarian Film: Models and Identities project, on 29 September 2021, 11:30 am, press foyer, Festival and Congress Centre – Varna.
 
The monograph Plotting a Map of Undomesticated Filmmaking. Independent, Amateur and Alternative Cinema in Bulgaria after 1989 by Assoc. Prof. Alexander Donev offers an overview and analyses of various creative forms that have gained higher or lower visibility though made without public funding. This problem is given the full treatment for the first time in a Bulgarian study. Independent filmmaking is presented in the monograph as a badge of democratisation not only of cinematic expression, but also of removing the institutional, economic and other barriers to filmmakers so that they could communicate directly with their potential audiences.
 
 
Celluloid, Cellulose and Clouds. Transmedia Challenges Facing Bulgarian Film Criticism (1989–2021) by Rosen Spasov, PhD, traces the development of Bulgarian film criticism following the political and economic change in this country after 1989. Film criticism as an occupation in a permanent crisis, strongly influenced recently by the rapid development of digital technologies and the advent of the Internet in everyday life is placed in an international context. The book highlights an almost ending process: from printed periodicals film criticism goes once and for all digital in the ephemeral domain of the Internet. Once there, the filmic discourse faces new challenges and constant changes, yet is offered new opportunities for undiscovered until now horizons.
 
Short-form Films: Advantages and Challenges by Prof. DSc. Petya Alexandrova looks at the variety of short feature films (experimental, independent, adaptations, hybrids, omnibuses, etc.) and the relating to them new directions, styles and names. Bulgarian short features are not always effective in enriching film language and the authorial principle; still, they definitely enrich and lend variety to the practices of making, exhibiting, distribution and overall functioning of the film process.