site.btaTwelve Films in First- and Second-Feature Competition at 30th Sofia Film Fest

Twelve films will compete in the International Competition for First and Second Feature Films at the 30th Sofia International Film Festival, the organizers said. The Sofia International Film Festival will welcome audiences on March 12-31.

This competition is being held for the 24th year, and its jury will award the Sofia - City of Film Grand Prix, provided by Sofia Municipality. The jury is chaired by Gyorgy Palfi (Hungary), with Yana Titova (Bulgaria), Matteo Zoppis (Italy), Zhanna Ozirna (Ukraine) and Pavel G. Vesnakov (Bulgaria) as its members.

Among the entries is Myrsini Aristidou's Hold onto Me, a Cyprus-Denmark-Greece co-production, which won the Audience Award at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Bulgarian actress Maria Petrova stars in the film. Both Aristidou and Petrova will present the film to festival audiences.

Alexander Kosev's Women Out of Order and Ralitsa Petrova's Lust, co-produced with a Danish and a Swedish company, are the Bulgarian entries.

Other films in the programme include: The Condor Daughter (Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay), Life in a Beat (Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Montenegro, France), Cinema Jazireh (Turkiye, Iran, Bulgaria, Romania), Nina Rosa (Canada, Italy, Bulgaria, Belgium), Trial of Hein (Germany), A Safe Place (Romania), Broken Voices (Czechia, Slovakia), Dump of Untitled Pieces (Turkiye) and Nomad Shadow (USA, Spain, France).