On November 30th, the eighth edition of the Bulgarian Culture Festival ends in the Belgian capital city of Brussels. Let us recall that it is organized by the Diogenes Cultural Center and its founder and artistic director is Zlatina Ruseva. She is a documentary director and has been living in Brussels for decades. One of her main activities is organization of the Millennium International Documentary Film Festival.

“Last year, we had planned 15 events with 37 Bulgarian guest artists. It was so hard that I decided to quit and even announced it was the last festival," Zlatina says. “The scale was bigger, but unfortunately the festival did not get any support, while there was a chance for a broad media campaign during Bulgaria's euro-presidency. But this is in the past. This year, our embassy in the Kingdom of Belgium supported us through a program of the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which allowed us to cover at least part of the costs. This year's festival is narrower, but we tried to make a varied program with two main focuses - cinema and children's events. We selected some of the latest Bulgarian films. At the opening we showed ‘The Omnipotent‘, directed by Ilian Djevelekov, which is the Bulgarian proposal for Oscar. The interest was great and we had to organize another screening.

The second focus is something we would like to do on a constant basis. There is a very large Bulgarian community in Belgium. However, children are separated from Bulgarian culture and are at risk of growing without a sense of cultural affiliation and identity, which at a later stage is a prerequisite for problems in personal development. That's why we try to organize as many events for children as possible. This year we invited the Burgas Theater with ‘Tumba-Lumba’ - a magnificent performance without words built on Bulgarian folklore and mythology and including music, dance, dolls. Many foreigners also came to it. The second performance of the ‘Princesses and the Dragon’ also caused much interest and we had to repeat it. Children are very happy and really need such things. Of course, the program also includes literary readings, music. This year almost all the movies and shows had English subtitles and the audience was very diverse- Belgians, foreigners who work in the local institutions, etc... We close the festival with ‘The Heights’(based on the novel by Milen Ruskov and directed by Viktor Bozhinov. Our festival is not only an opportunity to meet Bulgarian culture. It is a sought after place for communication between people, for new acquaintances, which in turn give birth to new ideas for Bulgarian cultural events.”

English: Alexander Markov