Chinese Cinema Week kicks off in Bulgaria

A woman looks at a poster of the Chinese Cinema Week in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Feb. 23, 2024. The Chinese Cinema Week kicked off in movie theaters in five major cities in Bulgaria on Friday. (Photo by Marian Draganov/Xinhua)

SOFIA, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Cinema Week kicked off in movie theaters in five major cities in Bulgaria on Friday.

The event is the first attempt to bring Chinese films to Bulgarian cinemas on a for-profit basis.

Three contemporary Chinese films will make a debut during the Cinema Week: Cloudy Mountain (2021), Raid on the Lethal Zone (2023) and Ping Pong: The Triumph (2023). The films narrate the stories of ordinary heroes from different areas of life and cover topics such as national causes, family ties, and emotions in relationships.

The cinemas participating in the pilot scheme are in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, and Burgas, the four largest cities in Bulgaria, and in Veliko Tarnovo -- Bulgaria's medieval capital where the second Confucius Institute in the Balkan country was established in 2012.

The Cinema Week marks the end of the series of events welcoming the Chinese New Year of the Dragon Bulgaria.

It also marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Bulgaria. It was jointly organized by two companies from the two countries, with the assistance of the Chinese Embassy in Bulgaria. ■

People look at a poster of the Chinese Cinema Week in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Feb. 23, 2024. The Chinese Cinema Week kicked off in movie theaters in five major cities in Bulgaria on Friday. (Photo by Marian Draganov/Xinhua)