site.btaSofia DocuMental Presents Awards at Seventh Edition

Awards and honorary certificates were presented at an evening ceremony at Sofia's Cinema House during the seventh Sofia DocuMental festival, which focuses on human rights documentaries.

The Best Female Director award went to director Pegah Ahangarani for Rehearsals for a Revolution. The prize, provided by the Bulgarian Fund for Women, is a glass hammer statuette.

"Throughout history, others have too often spoken on behalf of women, defined our roles and decided which parts of our lives deserve attention," the Bulgarian Fund for Women's Gergana Kutseva said. She said this was precisely why women needed to be behind the camera, with the resources and freedom to ask their own questions.

In a video message, Ahangarani said the award held personal significance because she had always been surrounded by strong women. "In this film, I am trying to remember them and honour them," said the Iranian director, who dedicated the award to the women of her country.

As BTA previously noted, Sofia DocuMental introduced two new awards this year. The Best Bulgarian Documentary Film award went to director Elena Stoycheva's debut, Elena in Deleyna. Stoycheva also appears as one of the film's subjects in its account of life around the last village shop and pub in the sparsely populated Vlach village. In a video message, Stoycheva said she was happiest for the people of Deleyna, who had trusted her to film them in everyday situations, "with their humour and their zest for life".

A Song Without a Home by Georgian director Rati Tsiteladze won the other new competition, for Best International Human Rights Film, held with support from Amnesty International Bulgaria. The film follows Adelina, a young trans woman who flees her Georgian village for Vienna in the hope of finally living freely. "Documentary cinema is a very important ally in exposing human rights violations, wherever they occur in the world," Amnesty International Bulgaria Director Nayden Rashkov said as he presented the award.

The Dnevnik Award went to Between Days Between Nights by directors Cecile Canut and Stefka Stefanova Nikolova. The film offers an intimate look at daily life in a Roma community marked by poverty, isolation and segregation. "We all enter and leave this world. We come naked and leave naked, so we have nothing to fight over," Nikolova said in an audio message to the audience. Dnevnik also presented a special award to director Svetoslav Draganov's Dear Maria. Honorary certificates went to Rayna Teneva for Geography Is Destiny in the Best Bulgarian Film category and to Bojina Panayotova for With Love and Rage in the Best Female Director category.

The awards ceremony was followed by the Bulgarian premiere of director Tatjana Bozic's Fragments of Belonging.

Audiences can once again watch and vote for their favourite films, the festival team said. The Audience Award will be presented on October 4 as part of this year's Great Cinema in the Open Air initiative, which will feature a special screening of the documentary Bowie: The Final Act.