Three other candidates including former NFC director Alexander Donev competed for the position.

Martschewski inherits the position after Irina Kanusheva’s two-year management as acting director. Kanusheva told FNE that she would not take part in the contest as “she did not want to run for the post.”

Martschewski, a graduate in Philosophy at the former GDR Humboldt University and in film directing at the Potsdam-Babelsberg Film Academy, is the first director of the national film institution whose professional career was nearly entirely built outside of the country. He lived and worked in Germany except for the years between 1978 and 1982 when he worked as film director at the Sofia based Vreme Studio and as German language news editor at Bulgarian National Television (www.bnt.bg).

In 1982 he became managing director of the Munich based Gallo studios, then worked as a freelancer in the field of interactive media programmes.

In 1989 Martschewski became Head of Studies at the Berlin-based German Film and Television Academy (DFFB, www.dffb.de), eventually in charge of the Academy’s Directing Faculty.

His documentaries include Oliver Kahn and the Passion for Soccer and Oliver Kahn and the Particularities of Life.