Sofia Municipality Launches Film Strategy for Public Debate

21-03-2017

Sofia Municipality Launches Film Strategy for Public Debate

By Pavlina Jeleva

SOFIA: The Sofia Municipality plans to implement a ten-year strategy Sofia - Creative City of Film, focusing on the creative and industrial aspects of film, and stimulating local authorities to set up cinema as a priority during the next decade. The core of the strategy is to establish a financial fund aiming at supporting the production of Bulgarian debuts and films dedicated to younger audiences.

The administrative instrument will be financed through the municipal Culture programme and deductions from the market income.

Furthermore, the ambitions of the strategy are linked to the expansion of film education by creating one or more cinema schools in Sofia. Several mobile screens will bring films closer to audiences inhabiting remoted suburbs of the Bulgarian capital.

“Sofia is Bulgaria’s affirmed film industry centre. In 2016, 21 feature films and 23 commercials were shot in our capital. On the other side, Nu Boyana Film Studios delivered services to 35 foreign productions and 80 spots. All films connected to Sofia have been exempt from municipal taxes. Also over 80 Bulgarian documentaries have been supported by us”, Mayor Yordanka Fandakova told the Bulgarian media.

Sofia - Creative City of Film is the first official long term document encouraging film in the last 40 years. After the public debate, the strategy will be voted by the Municipal Council in order to be definitively adopted.

Published in Bulgaria