The Bulgarian proposal for the prestigious “Oscar” film award – “Lessons of Goodness” directed by Stefan Komandarev, entered the official selection of the 18th “Rome Film Fest” (“Festa del Cinema”). This was announced by the director of the Bulgarian Cultural Institute Zhana Yakovleva.
“There is nothing accidental in this life!!! I am insanely happy!!!”, commented Yakovleva.
The good news about the further success of the Bulgarian film, which has already won prestigious awards, comes immediately after the visit of the Minister of Culture Krastyu Krastev to Rome, where he opened the 16th edition of the Bulgarian Cinema Festival and met with the president of the world-famous film studio “Cinecittà” – Chiara Sbarriga, as well as with producer Francesco Martino de Carles. Together with them, Krastev identified specific opportunities thanks to which Bulgaria and Italy could cooperate in terms of cinematographic and audiovisual co-productions, as well as their distribution in Bulgaria and Italy. Also, the Minister of Culture extended an invitation to the representatives of the Italian cinema to visit Bulgaria to engage in a public discussion with representatives of the sector in November.
In an interview with BNT on Tuesday, Minister Krastyu Krastev confirmed that the Ministry of Culture will help the project for the best presentation of the Bulgarian candidacy for the “Oscar” – Stefan Komandarev’s film “The Lessons of Goodness”.
The eighteenth edition of the “Rome Film Festival”, which is officially recognized by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations FIAPF, will take place from 18 to 29 October 2023. The event will have an additional day of programming, matching the duration of other well-known international festivals , like the one in Cannes. The category in which our “Lessons of Goodness” will compete, along with 17 other international films, is the “Progressive Cinema Competition – Visions of the World of Tomorrow”.
Films in the competition section will be judged by a jury composed of professionals in the fields of cinema, culture and the arts. The festival’s artistic director, Paola Malanga, will be assisted by a selection committee composed of: Giovanna Fulvi, an expert on Asian cinema and one of the programmers of the Toronto Film Festival; Enrico Magrelli, film critic, former director of the International Critics’ Week; Emanuela Martini, film critic, former director of the Turin Film Festival; Nico Marzano, head of the cinema department of the ICA (“Institute of Contemporary Art in London”); Alberto Pezzotta, film critic and historian, former member of the selection committee of the Venice International Film Festival.
The previous editions marked the participation in the Festa of many of the “heroes” of world cinema. Many of the films have won the highest awards, such as the “Oscar” and “Golden Globe”, the most famous awards in European cinema, such as the European Film Awards, “Cesar” and “Goya”, or in Italian cinema, from “David di Donatello’, next to the silver bands.
This year’s festival program will also include other non-competition sections, audience meetings, events, special screenings and tributes.
The “Rome Film Festival” will be held at the “Auditorium Parco della Musica”, where the main screening rooms and the extensive red carpet, one of the largest in the world, will be located. Other locations and cultural sites of the capital will be included in the program.
The organizer of the “Rome Film Festival” is “Fondazione Cinema per Roma”. The artistic director is Paola Malanga, journalist and film critic, one of the founders of the magazine “Duel” and one of the main contributors to the “Dizionario dei Film” (“Dictionary of Films”) by Paolo Mereghetti, author of famous essays on some of the great authors of world cinema and deputy director of “Rai Cinema”.
