Sofia International Film Festival

Ena Dozo from Sarajevo Film Festival, Mira Staleva from Sofia International Film Festival, Andrei Agudaru from Romanian Film Promotion, Cristian Hordila from the International Film Festival in Cluj and Tillman Scheel from Reelport presented
the project "Operation Kino" (OK). OK is an initiative of the
international film festivals in Sofia  (Sofia Film Festival), Sarajevo
(Sarajevo Film Festival), Cluj (Transilvania International Film
Festival) and Istanbul (International Istanbul Film Festival), in
partnership with the online platform for short films Reelport, matching
authors and film festivals worldwide. This traveling film program, which
has been existing for three years, is composed of 10 to 25 films and 
different titles are selected for each city. Among them are the key
European and non-European films as well as a selection of short films,
including winners of the competitions for short films at each of the
four festivals (for Sofia it is Sofia Short Challenge).

In Bulgaria, Sofia Film Fest on the Road
meets the audience from different Bulgarian towns with the world of
cinema. The project is supported by the MEDIA Mundus programme of the
EU, the National Film Centre and the network of cinema theatres  Europe
Cinemas. The aim of the project is to show European and alternative to
Hollywood movies in various cinemas in Bulgaria, and where there isn’t a
cinema theatre, to present  digital screenings in other halls and even
outdoors and thus to  cultivate audiences for independent and art titles
which rarely reach the cinemas  even in big cities.

Most of the
movies are part of the Sofia International Film Festival over the
years. "Art Fest" has the rights for some of them, others are supplied
by other Bulgarian film distribution houses. Currently only 17 Bulgarian
towns have cinema theatres, the screens in them are 65. For comparison 
– before 1989 there were above 3600. In some cities we’ve visited, the
screenings were attended by young people who went to the cinema for the
first time in their life, says Mira Staleva – Deputy Director of the
Sofia International Film Festival and director of the Sofia Meetings.
Screenings of the films from OK started from Sofia – within the Sofia
Film Festival in 2010 and continued through 2011 in cities where the
Sofia International Film Festival was held on the road – Burgas,
Plovdiv, Blagoevgrad, Stara Zagora, Rousse, Gabrovo, Sliven, Varna,
Dobrich Sozopol.

Cristian Hordila explained that in Romania
"Operation Kino" selects 10 titles from the festival program in Cluj,
which shows mostly in the open air cinemas in various Romanian cities.
In Istanbul they are concentrated on showing films in the outskirts of
comprising 15 million inhabitants metropolis. According to Ena Dozo each
year in Bosnia are selected 10 different cities that the movie trailer
with 10 titles goes to. Even in a large city like Mostar there isn’t a
cinema theatre at the moment. In return, in Bosnia exists the program
Punk Cinema, which for the second consecutive year selects films of
young artists and presents them in the cities of the country along  with
the main feature program of "Operation Kino". Exactly in Sarajevo a
year and a half ago was born the idea  for Video on Demand (VOD)
platform to "Operation Kino".

Read the whole material on SIFF's website.