Culture Minister Evtim Miloshev was heckled by audience members at the opening of the 40th anniversary Kinomania festival at Hall 1 of the National Palace of Culture on Thursday evening.
As the official took the microphone, a portion of the crowd interrupted his address with applause, jeers, and chants of Resignation! and BCP!, according to reports from SEGA News. The hostile reception prompted festival organizers to remind attendees from the stage that the Ministry of Culture provides financial backing for the annual film event.
State funding for culture relative to GDP will shrink rather than expand. Budget calculations show that public spending on culture relative to GDP is slated to drop from 0.56% in 2026 to 0.43% by 2029, Sega reported. This downward trajectory breaches earlier expectations that state allocations would increase by 0.1 percentage points annually toward a target of one percent.
Additional pressures have compounded the unrest.
The European and festival cinema venue Euro Cinema closed its doors after operating for 27 years inside the Ministry of Culture building. Meanwhile, state theaters have reported ongoing delays in salary disbursements, and community cultural centers face funding deficits driven by increases to the minimum social security income mandated by authorities.
The anniversary event marks four decades since the festival’s inception in 1987 under the original banner of World Film Panorama. Academician Lyudmil Staykov, the creator of the original forum, attended the opening night ceremony in Sofia.
Following the disruption during ministerial remarks, organizers quickly curtailed the formal speeches and initiated the screening program. The evening opened with the short documentary Kinomania: The Beginning by Boris Misirkov and Georgi Bogdanov, which chronicles the festival’s initial launch.
„Оставка!“ и „БКП!“: Евтим Милошев бе посрещнат с освирквания на „Киномания“.https://t.co/rfWTn3DuTI
The program continued with Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, a black comedy. Malkovich earned the Volpi Cup for best actor at the Venice Film Festival for his performance.
The 40th edition of Kinomania is organized by the Imam Ideya foundation and the National Palace of Culture. Alongside Sofia, the festival expands to multiple Bulgarian cities, including Plovdiv, Varna, Bourgas, Stara Zagora, and Blagoevgrad.
In Bourgas, the program launched with Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur, which captured the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. Stara Zagora hosts screenings starting November 17 with Black Money for White Nights by Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, accompanied by a meeting with the film crew. Blagoevgrad opens its local schedule on November 18 with The Phantom of the Opera.
Mark Cousins attends as a special guest to present episodes of his sweeping documentary undertaking dedicated to film history, meeting audiences at Odeon Cinema and Lumière Cinema.
Retrospective screenings pay tribute to prominent cultural figures. This includes 95 years since the birth of sculptor Galin Malaktchiev through Dimitar Petkov’s Ticho, which won the Golden Rose in 1990, alongside celebrations of Valentin Ganev’s 70th birthday via Emma Konstantinova’s Without a Script.
Screenings extend online through Neterra.TV+ starting November 20, alongside a special screening.
The festival marks four decades since its inception in 1987.