Over the past few weeks the film festival Kinomania was in town. It has been the fourth or fifth film festival organised in Sofia since we’ve been here. They really seem to love cinema in Bulgaria. Or is it some sort of pro-European propaganda, as I’ve heard someone whisper to me? Most of these festivals have been heavily subsidized by the EU or some of its member states. Regardless of the ideological motivation, we’ve been happy to enjoy some of the latest jewels of the film festival circuit.
The movies we watched (click here to scroll to my short film reviews & trailers):
- How to Have Sex (6/10)
- Anora (8/10)
- The Apprentice (6/10)
- Queer (7/10)
- Love Lies Bleeding (7.5/10)
- The Substance (8/10)
I went a bit ham and bought tickets to watch six movies in the span of two weeks. I’m very pleased that Becky obliged. To make things more interesting, I secured a diverse selection of cinemas. This would invite us to get a good understanding of the cinema landscape of Sofia.
At the bottom of the article, I’ve include mini reviews of the movies we watched, but before that we have the much more relevant review of the cinema chairs.
The cinemas
Below you’ll find the written accounts of my experiences of the different cinemas of Sofia.
- Kino Vladykova
- National Palace of Culture
- G8 Cultural Center
- Cinema House
- Cine Grand
Kino Vladykova
This is the oldest, still functioning, cinema of Sofia. It has been active since 1926 and it boasts 150 seats. When I saw the pictures of this cinema online I immediately fell in love. It looks very cute and quaint – exactly how you’d expect an old art house cinema to look like. Apparently they are struggling a bit and they regularly do screenings for only two grandmas from the neighbourhood.
The chairs were fairly simple, nothing fancy. They lacked cup holders, but they did offer ample leg room. Because it was such an old cinema, the sound system was also not top-notch. All of that is forgiven because the cinema has a great aesthetic ambiance. Although to be fair: none of the aesthetics really add to the cinematic experiences. When the lights go off, all you see and hear is the movie and thus the only important factors then are: screen quality, audio quality, and seat comfort. Kino Vladykova scored poorly on the first two, but high on the last one.
National Palace of Culture
Built at the height of the communist power in Bulgaria in 1981, the National Palace of Culture is one of the world’s largest cultural conference centers in the world. We watched two movies (Anora & The Apprentice) in the main hall of the building. It’s absolutely massive – it seats over 3500 people – which makes sense because this venue is not strictly a cinema, it also hosts theater productions, concerts and other events. The multi-functionality of the space comes at a cost however: it lacks the intimate experience that makes going to the movies so special.
The chairs are also clearly relics of the communist time – the old school orange & cream combination is reminiscent of times when indoor smoking was still allowed. The chairs offer no cup holders and leg room is sparse, but the seats are very comfortable to sit in – which is their primary function anyway.
G8 Cultural Center
The cup holders in the front row seats are the only giveaway that this room is a cinema. Any unsuspecting spectator might’ve assumed this was some sort of corporate torture chamber where they strap you in to listen to an uninspiring Power Point presentation by human resources. This small art house cinema does get bonus points because they produced a small batch of fresh popcorn though.
The movie we watched here was The Substance. As you can read in my mini-review below, about twenty people left the cinema midway through the screening. Twenty people leaving a room of only 70 seats is quite impactful as you can understand. The G8 Cultural Center gets points deducted because of the awful corporate office vibe, the small armrests, and the lack of leg room. The video and audio quality was also the worst of all five reviewed cinemas. Thank god the movie was so entertaining, otherwise we might’ve left early as well.
Cinema House
The Cinema House is an art house cinema that’s quite close to Becky’s office – which is why we’ve been to the cinema bar on quite a few occasions already. We had however never attended any screening here. The crowd that frequents this cinema/bar is quite hip. The sort of young, affluent, art crowd. Well dressed, drinking fancy IPAs. You get the idea. We watched the movie Queer here – a movie that matched to audience quite well in levels of pretentiousness.
The seats were not bad. They looked like classic cinema seats, which is always a nice touch. Unfortunately they did not come with cup holders, which was slightly annoying but not detrimental. The floor however, was slanted, something that was actually quite annoying because the water bottle that I couldn’t secure in the cup holder therefore placed on the floor kept sliding downwards. A final remark about these seats is that they had their numbers attached to the back of the chair. A ridiculous design decision, because it meant that everyone was leaning way over the seats to check their seat numbers. Very poor design.
Cine Grand
Finally I get to discuss the peak cinema experience. Cine Grand is a commercial cinema that is located in the Park Center Mall quite close to our apartment. I know, I know, a commercial cinema in a mall… that sounds absolutely devoid of any romance. But the thing with commercial entertainment is that’s all so very well designed. Every little detail is geared towards optimal customer satisfaction.
- ✅ Reclining seats
- ✅ Cup holder
- ✅ Second cup holder (!)
- ✅ Appropriately distanced from all neighbours
- ✅ Massive elevation difference between each row – thus always a clear view
The picture below shows it all. Excellent seats. And next to that, also excellent screen quality and superb audio experience. The difference in audio quality between this commercial cinema and the other art house cinemas really stood out to me. It was one of the first times I really started appreciating audio.
The movies
Below you’ll find the very short reviews I’ve written of the movies. I’ve also included the trailers, in case you’re interested in the looks of the movies.
How to Have Sex (6/10)
This movie captured the essence of a typical British ‘post exam holiday’, but lacked the ambition to explore the topic of sexual assault (the film’s main theme) any deeper and thus it remained at the tension level of a sexual assault awareness campaign. The acting and cinematography were great though.
Anora (8/10)
This is a movie about an erotic dancer who elopes with a party-crazed son of a Russian billionaire. That’s a recipe for a great movie. A visually stunning movie, but with a weird balance between humour and tension. The proportion of slapstick humour kept growing in the second half of the movie, which removed any sort of serious engagement I had with the main characters. The movie picks up towards the end, but it left me with mixed feelings.
The Apprentice (6/10)
A biopic of the early years of Donald Trump. Before watching this movie I heard that Trump was vehemently against this release, which is excellent free publicity for a movie and it absolutely made me want to watch the film. Unfortunately it is not nearly as controversial as it could be – based on the real world events. The movie plays it safe, it lacks rigidity and depth, but it does a good job giving understanding of Trump’s relationship with his mentor Roy Cohn.
Queer (7/10)
Queer was perhaps the movie that I was most looking forward to seeing. I had read the book by William S. Burroughs beforehand and was excited to see how director Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name) and actor Daniel Craig (James Bond) would turn this perverted gay romance into moving images. But of course, when the expectations are high you can only be disappoint. I feel that Guadagnino did a poor job capturing the autobiographical story of Burroughs in this film. We never truly get to see the desperate, perverted protagonist that is featured in the book. Guadagnino tried to make the film into a bit of a surrealist artsy romantic movie (which is usually a lame excuse under which all flaws can be swept). That being said, the wardrobe and the set design were stunning (it was filmed at the famous Cinecittà Studio in Rome).
Love Lies Bleeding (7.5/10)
This is the second queer romance in this list. This time the love story involves the daughter of a criminal syndicate leader in a New Mexican town – she falls in love with a hitchhiking female bodybuilder who happens to pass their town on her way to a Las Vegas body building competition. What follows is sex, drugs and violent murders. A very strong movie visually, but with a presence of plot holes and a sincere lack of backstories that made me feel like I had tuned in for the final episode of a TV series.
The Substance (8/10)
An outrageously grotesque movie – starring a brilliant Demi More – that critiques beauty standards and the entertainment industry. There is an insane amount of visceral gore in this movie – so much so that more than twenty people at various intervals decided they couldn’t take it any longer and left the room. The brave audience members that endured the gore did so with morbid joy and loud laughter. What I loved about this movie is that is was not trying to be subtle – all of the director’s intentions were thrown into your face at high velocity. Watching a movie that was so over-the-top and devoid of pretense was an extremely freeing cinema experience.