“I want this festival to keep its festivity,” says Prof. Alexander Grozev, who founded Love is Folly back in 1993 alongside other colleagues of his from the movie branch. “There will be no movies about zombies, aliens and any kind of space catastrophes. It will accentuate on love. Love in the broadest sense of the word, but mostly as human relations,” the long-year director of the festive event goes on to say.

Prof. Grozev outlines that over the 25 years of its existence the festival has turned into a platform of good movies, aimed at the nobler side of human nature. This is the type of cinema which eliminates violence – the modern trend of global commercial filmmaking.

The professor says that the festival’s organizers have always managed to attract famous names among the guests of the festival, not Hollywood-famous though.

“A festival like the one held in Varna each year finds quick popularity among moviemakers due to its coziness. We invite some of the most famous actors, directors and screenwriters. They all feel at home and have the chance to communicate with each other. This is impossible at huge festivals like the ones in Berlin, Moscow or Cannes, as everyone is in a hurry and very busy there. They lose the human contact in this way. In Varna we rely mainly on human contacts which is a very strong plus.”

For the first time this year a youth cinema contest is organized, named Cinema of the Young. The Youth Subject in Cinema. The curious thing here is that the jury which will evaluate the movies consists of amateurs only, but they are all young people with their fresh attitude to life. Prof. Grozev says that he truly anticipates and cherishes the opinion of such people. Traditionally, Love is Folly hosts its category, displaying the best of the major global festivals. So the citizens and guests of Varna will have the chance to see the 120 Beats Per Minute movie that received the Golden Palm Award in Cannes and also The Salesman Iranian movie with its Best Foreign Language Film Oscar 2017.

As always, the festival program will accentuate on certain states’ moviemaking industries. In this year’s edition, to be held in the period August 25^th – September 3^rd, the accent will be on Indonesia, Hungary, France and Russia. As Prof. Grozev points out, classical Bulgarian films are traditionally presented at the forum. This year the spectators will have the opportunity to see Dvoinikat /The Double/, Da Obichash na Inat /To Love in Spie Of/, Gospodin za Edin Den /Gentleman for One Day/, Matriarhat /Matriarchate/, Avantazh /Advantage/, Pismo do Amerika /A Letter to America/ etc.

At the same time the festival will mark the 100^th anniversary of the first Bulgarian feature movie of the same name: Love is Folly. The audience will have the chance to see it accompanied by an orchestra in almost the same manner as they did it a century ago. Thus the young viewers will be able to see a silent movie from the dawn of filmmaking. Then we have this Hungarian Swing comedy, which takes us back to the era of jazz. The Romanian-Bulgarian co-production comedy 6.9 on the Richter Scale also promises to be a very good experience, full of fun, against the peculiar background of… earthquake fears.

There are over 100 titles of different movies in the program of this year’s Love is Folly edition and the fans will enjoy the forum for sure, as the experience involves the warmth of the sea waves, the romantics of Varna’s sunsets and the excitement of those summer nights…

English version: Zhivko Stanchev