Special Hungarian programmes in Bulgaria

The Liszt Institute Sofia has organised special Hungarian cultural programmes throughout Bulgaria in the spring of 2024. At the International Sofia Film Festival, four Hungarian films were screened with the participation of the Institute, and a unique picturebook exhibition was opened in cooperation with the Deák 17 Gallery. At the end of April, the prestigious National Hungarian-Bulgarian Recitation Competition was held, while in May a joint exhibition of textile artists Ceca Georgieva and Nóra Lévai was opened, and the Europe Day was celebrated with a literary walk.

The Hungarian Institute in Sofia is a traditional partner of the International Sofia Film Festival, which was held for the 28th time this year. As a result of this cooperation, Bulgarian audiences were able to see a number of new Hungarian films and meet renowned Hungarian directors and actors. This year, in the presence of the directors, the audience had the chance to see Ádám Breier's Lefkovices Are Mourning and Szabolcs Hajdú's Kalman's Day, as well as Katalin Moldovai's Without Air and Tudor Giurgiu's Libertate'89-Nagyszeben. The succes was huge, with more than a thousand people coming to see the Hungarian films and artists. The Lefkovices Are Mourning, a film about the relationships of a Jewish family in Hungary, won the international critics' Fipresci Award at the festival.

A special exhibition of so-called "silent books", i.e. picturebooks, was opened at the Liszt Institute Sofia in cooperation with the Deák17 Gallery, entitled "All Pictures". Silent books are those that present a coherent story without written text. These illustrated books explicitly emphasise the fact that the visual language of illustrations and images is in no way secondary to the written language. The exhibition that awaits visitors until 30 April, was opened by Zsuzsanna Blaschke, art historian. On 17 April, as a complementary event to the exhibition, the Institute's staff organised a craft session for the youngest visitors: children could make a decorative little book to take home.

This year, for the 29th time, the National Hungarian-Bulgarian Recitation Competition was held by the Liszt Institute Sofia and the Sumeni Municipality under the auspices of the Bulgarian Minister of Culture. This year's competition honoured the 115th anniversary of the birth of Bulgarian poet Nikola Vapcarov and the 95th anniversary of the birth of Imre Kertész. The works to be performed were freely chosen by the contestants from Bulgarian and Hungarian poetry, prose and drama. The jury assessed the performance of 83 participants in five categories. This year, for the 3rd time, the "Digital Poetry with Novatel" category was also launched, with short videos inspired by poems of Hungarian and Hungarian-Bulgarian poets. The competition has become a key part of the Bulgarian cultural scene, to the extent that almost all Bulgarian actors have participated in the competition, either as students or as professional actors.

The joint exhibition of Ceca Georgieva and Nóra Lévai presents different forms of textile art. Nóra Lévai works with specific textures created by the interweaving of coloured fibres, creating floating images, while Ceca Georgieva's works are specifically reflective of nature, using natural materials. The artists' friendship dates back to their acquaintance at the College of Applied Arts, and since then they have worked and exhibited together on numerous occasions. The exhibition will be accompanied by a lecture on 16 May, entitled 30 years of Textiles in Nature, with Ceca Georgieva. The exhibition will be open until 27 June.

On 9 May 2024, to celebrate the day of the founding of the European Union, the Institute organised a literary walk through Sofia's iconic literary sites. The first walk was led by poetess Albena Todorova in English, and the event was repeated in Bulgarian during the evening. The programme was part of the cultural calendar of the Sofia Metropolitan Municipality.