As autumn comes into its own with days growing shorter and nights longer, Berliners turn their thoughts to stout, but also to the traditional Festival of Lights, one of the most colourful events in the cultural life of the capital of Germany. From October 9 to 18, floodlights will bathe the city’s cultural monuments in a myriad of colours. This year’s edition will once again be a magnet for over two million, who will come to watch the breathtaking show, when more than 70 of the city’s architectural and historical pearls will be transformed into works of art of a very different kind. The most famous buildings and monuments will play each its own role, while serving as a backdrop for the various visual displays, all at the same time.

This year, the Bulgarian company MP Studio will also be taking part in the festival. The Bulgarian light show will be competing for world acclaim as well as a prize. The Brandenburg Gate is the venue the organizers have assigned the Bulgarian 3D artistes. Here is the studio’s founder Marin Petkov with more:

“Our company was singled out among many other studios from all over the world and is one of the six nominees for the festival’s special prize. Being part of this grand event is a great honour and recognition of our work, all the more so that we shall be presenting our story on the Brandenburg Gate. In this project each of the finalists had to prepare a 3-minute video; we thought three minutes was not enough, yet work on this really short video was very complex - we were used to making much longer shows. So, it was a difficult job fitting into these three minutes but ultimately the presentation turned out very dynamic. It is the story of a brother and sister who are lost in time and have to remember where they come from so as to be able to go back. This is the idea that earned us the nomination for the prize.”

This is not the first such project for MP Studio. They have been telling 3D stories all over the world.

“This year we had projects in Dubai and Kuwait, as well as in Belgium and France. In Belgium we put on a 3D mapping project in a cave – the first in Europe. We have had many invitations, actually over the past two years we have been working on projects outside this country, but we also want to work here, in Bulgaria,” says Marin Petkov.

For the first time in the history of the Berlin Festival of Lights there are two special prizes: for visual achievement and for new audio-visual art dimensions. In the category in which the Bulgarian light display is nominated, the show will be competing with projects from Spain and Australia.

English version: Milena Daynova