The official unveiling of Master of Art Film Festival is on April 12th with the Dancing Beethoven movie of director Arantxa Aguirre. The film is about the hard preparation work of ballet dancers and musicians for their participation in a unique show in Tokyo. The evening will actually begin two hours earlier with screenings of Letters from the Future with composer and pianist Victor Chuchkov being its main character and also of Antoine de Saint-Exupery – the Last Romantic – devoted to the Little Prince’s author.

The festival continues till April 30th and traditionally the National Palace of Culture hosts the event. 77 premiering for Bulgaria titles are on the program, 10 of those being Bulgarian. The movies present big names in the area of arts and culture – Bjarke Ingels, Kent Nagano, Marc Chagall, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Lev Tolstoy, Salvador Dali, Maria Callas, Michelangelo, Charlie Chaplin, Carlos Saura etc.

Ever since the first edition of the festival its founder Nayo Titsin has set the goal to present the best documentaries in the sphere of music, dancing art, architecture, design and literature. Two other categories have been added for the first time this year: art for children and culinary art. The next new feature is the festival’s taking place in three cities simultaneously – Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna. The selection of the works, their categories and the diverse range of topics make Master of Art a really unique event, not only for this country, but on a world scale too.

“Basically film festivals meet the audience with the 7th art. Master of Art meets presents to people all arts,” Nayo Titsin says. “Perhaps this is one of the most distinguished features of our festival. Presenting all those artistic wanderings and those big authors, the event is more like inspiring than entertaining. It’s never too late to touch upon art and there is no ‘booked seat’ on who can and who cannot do that. It’s not necessary to be in the spotlight by all means. Let’s take for example the Movement in Three Actions: Berlin Staatsoper movie that also shows the stage cleaners, the famous tenors, the conductors and everyone working at that special place. It tells about 275 years of history and also about the safety curtain. I am pretty convinced that the stage worker at Staatsoper somehow is involved with art as well, despite being anonymous. Even the fact that he switches backgrounds or lifts the curtain changes him somehow. The touch of the atmosphere itself makes him a better man for sure. The decision to establish this festival three years ago came due to the fact that I missed such a forum here in Bulgaria. I have toured around quite many art festivals with my documentaries. My impressions led me to the idea that I wanted something of that kind in Bulgaria as well. When I put up the concept I didn’t follow any particular model as I am unaware of the existence of precisely the same festival anywhere globally. As far as my favorite movie is concerned among music films – that is definitely Dancing Beethoven. It unifies so many great artists – the ballet of legendary Maurice Béjart, the Tokyo Ballet, the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra with Zubin Mehta being its conductor and the magnificent 9th Symphony of Beethoven. Master of Art is being held during the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU, and the theme from the final part of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 is actually Europe’s anthem. That was the reason why I selected this incredible movie for the event’s opening night.”

The screenings in Sofia will be at Lumiere, Odeon, the House of Cinema, Cine Grand at Park Center, the G8 Cultural Center and Euro Cinema. In Plovdiv those will be at Lucky House of Cinema and in Varna – at its Festival and Congress Centre and at the Contemporary Space Cinema Room.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev