One of the events audiences have been looking forward to most at the Sofia Film Fest is the Millennium Panorama, presenting the best of the Millennium International Documentary Film Festival in Brussels.

Millennium is the only world film festival dedicated to the principal aims of the new millennium, adopted by the UN members in 2000, among them eradicating poverty, promoting  human and social development, preserving natural resources. Founders and organizers of this prestigious forum are Zlatina Rousseva – a prominent documentary filmmaker and Lyubomir Georgiev, producer. The 7^th edition of Millennium will take place March 20 -28. Besides the documentary programme and the traditional Web Doc Meetings, dedicated to new digital media, this year the festival is hosting the Futurological Congress - a series of interactive meetings and workshops with the goal of making us think about the great stakes of tomorrow, featuring a string of conferences – The World Wide Web: The Dark Side of the Digital Revolution, Mankind and Biodiversity: a Story of a Break to Come? etc. As always the forum will be screening over 800 films. This means a great deal of preparatory work and effort by the jury and specialists.

“To my mind life is a battle,” says Zlatina Rousseva. “That is the way I am built. My mother kept pushing me to come back to Bulgaria, saying: “We have everything here, where are you off to?” But what I want is to travel, to meet people, to share, to make discoveries. Millennium gives me all that. The institutions in Belgium are looking forward to the festival – a sure sign that in the capital of Europe, it is a place for people to meet. On the other hand Millennium is my bond with Bulgaria. My husband and I are citizens of the world, yet the starting point is invariably Bulgaria. Most of the threads that have gone into moulding me as an individual are right here – friends, the beauty of our land. Still, I realize that much of the bitterness Bulgarians have been through has passed me by.”

Our compatriots also organize a Bulgarian Culture Festival in Brussels. “It came into being as a result of friendly contacts and a desire to make our mark in the enormous cultural diversity of the capital of Europe. In time, our ideas developed and we are now preparing for the fifth edition.” Says Mrs. Rousseva and adds:

“The festival has played a very positive role. To begin with, once the screenings were over, the audience would leave straightaway. But in the past year or two, the films have given us cause to meet afterwards, to talk over a glass of Bulgarian wine. The festival gives our self-esteem a boost – that we are a nation with a history, with achievements in culture. I myself discovered Bulgarians living in Belgium I had not met before. They say that when they come to Bulgaria they devote most of their time to friends and family and have no time for the theatre or for literary events. That is one of our tasks – to keep the bond with the cultural life in Bulgaria alive. We devote much of our time to children who grow up in a multilingual environment. They must know Bulgaria and things Bulgarian and identify with them. For them we organize several events which they look forward to very much. This year children will be at the centre of attention.”

Zlatina Rousseva is author of numerous films, holder of many prestigious awards.

“I want to make films about the positive things in life,” she says. “I have ideas and I am planning a new film – about people who have been able to find the meaning of life, to pass on values that have been falling into obscurity. What this world needs is more light and a positive role model. Watching the hundreds of wonderful films I have been wondering what it is that makes the people who created them tick. To create something there is obviously something very important you want to say, a message you want to convey.”

English version: Milena Daynova