Night is Cinema
Program`s author and curator: Maya Vitkova
The film program of "Night is Cinema", held for the first time in NIGHT/Plovdiv, is conditionally divided into short films by the American Film Institute, experimental cinema and films with content for mature audiences.
The main emphasis in "Night is Cinema" are films by American Film Institutes’ graduates who, at a later stage of their career, are given the most important film awards in the world; students from around the globe, some of them already announced as the names of tomorrow with their theses films and female directors from a workshop specifically designed for the American Film Institute. Special guests are Christopher Schwartz, manager of the Conservatory of the American Film Institute and his colleague Andrew Pagana, who will present the Institute’s film program. The audience of these films will be able to share the American spirit with a selected menu of barbecue and beer...
The second segment of "Night is Cinema" - experimental cinema with classical music improvisations - is a reminder of the time of silent film, live music will accompany the films ...
The third covers fiction films with content for mature audiences from Scandinavia, a place with a liberal understanding of the position of men and women in modern society... The menu is thematic miniature pastries and cold water...
I believe the individual segments in a peculiar way summarize our lives – mainstream and popular, elitist and more difficult to communicate and hidden, sometimes even cynical ... The "Night is Cinema."
Maya Vitkova is a writer-director and producer born in Sofia in 1978. She graduated from the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts in 2001. Between 1996 and 2008, Maya has worked as an assistant director and executive producer for national and international productions, such as the BBC’s Eastern Delight by Michael Palin and National Geographic’s The Ancient X-Files. In 2008 she executive produced Kamen Kalev's Eastern Plays, which premiered at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight. In 2009 Maya founded Viktoria Films, producing two shorts written by the Romanian Radu Jude, and her debut feature Viktoria. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2014. Viktoria has been the first Bulgarian feature in competition at Sundance, Rotterdam, the American Film Institute’s AFI Fest and many others in 2014/2015. Viktoria had more than 70 international selections, 10 awards and is the second Bulgarian feature sold for distribution in the USA.
Supported by the Embassy of the USA - Bulgaria.