Staying true to its commitment to champion great cinema and its power to connect and inspire, the Festival welcomes everyone by the seaside for six festive days dedicated to films from around the world, meetings with filmmakers and industry professionals, creative workshops, and more.
This year’s feature competition explores a diversity of themes and perspectives with superb debuts like Hugo Salvaterra’s audiovisual poem My Semba, (Angola, 2026), as well as the highly acclaimed Blue Heron (Canada/Hungary, 2025) by director Sophy Romvari. The selection includes also Gözde Kural’s second feature CINEMA JAZIREH (Turkey-Iran-Bulgaria-Romania, 2025), and Ian de la Rosa’s romantic drama Iván & Hadoum (Spain, 2026). The Bulgarian contender is Women Out of Order (Bulgaria, 2026) directed by Alexander Kossev.
A total of 14 films are selected in this year’s short competition programme, which is divided into national and international sections. These are: Abduction by dir. Yana Lineva, The Rabbit is Dead by dir. Hanis Batashov, Tomorrow by dir. Elena Valentinova, Blue Days by dir. Lina Pavlova, Schroedinger's Man by dir. Asparuh Frangov, Not to Be by dir. Gabriela Pometkova, Making Love by dir. Ventsislav Sariev, Rui Carlos by dir. Margarida Paias, Class by dir. Rumi Kaul, A Sky So Low by dir. Joachim Michaux, Pirateland by dir. Stavros Petropoulos, Left Behind by dir. Yannis Karpouzis, Our Room by dir. Jaume Claret Muxart, Captive Audience directed by Kew Lin.
Jury of this year’s festival competitions are the Turkish-born actress Saadet Isil Aksoy and the Bulgarian film directors and producers Boris Despodov and Nikolay Mutafchiev – for feature competition, as well as the Bulgarian directors and screenwriters Ilina Perianova, Dimitris Georgiev and the Hungarian film director, sound designer, and composer Gábor Holtai– for international and national short competitions. This year’s winner of the national short competition will receive a special “film production equipment” award provided by our partners at the VOESOLI production company.
Among the highlights are our special thematic programmes. The music section BIFF Tunes features a screening of the 4K restored version of director Elizabeth Lennard’s visual portrait of the legendary Japanese composer and electronic-music pioneer Ryuichi Sakamoto Tokyo Melody: A Film About Ryuichi Sakamoto” (1985). After a sold-out world premiere in London earlier this year British director Chris Atkins will present in Burgas his documentary about the iconic Manchester band James: Getting Away with It (2026). BIFF Black Sea selection includes the Bulgarian documentaries Snescha and Franz (Bulgaria, 2025) by director Svetoslav Draganov, and The March of the Amazons (Bulgaria, 2025) directed by Borislav Kolev, as well as the Turkish feature film Bonds, Roots and Passions (Turkey, 2025) by director Sunay Terzioğlu. Focus Austria is our special programme dedicated to the work of Austrian director, writer and producer Jessica Hausner with screenings of three of her films: Little Joe (2019), Amour Fou (2014) and Club Zero (2023). The best of the latest world animation is curated by the renowned Bulgarian-born animator Theodore Ushev in his selection AQUANIMA. In a special screening he will also present his own short film La Vie avec un idiot (Life With an Idiot, 2025). Traditionally we also treat our youngest audience with a children animation programme. Our last festival evening will pay tribute to one of the pioneers of American independent film Gus Van Sant with a closing screening of his latest feature Dead Man’s Wire (2025).
Join us by the sea at the Burgas International Film Festival 2026!
The 2026 Burgas International Film Festival is being held for the 11th consecutive year and is made possible with the financial support of the Municipality of Burgas, the National Film Center, in partnership with the Liszt Hungarian Cultural Institute, the Austrian Embassy, “Philip Morris” “Elkabel”, “Pernod Ricard Bulgaria”, “Moto-Pfohe”, “Fraport Twin Star”, “DiVes Estate”, MyAir Bridge, “Vizh!”, “Club Z”, “Boulevard Bulgaria”, and “ChernomorieBG”.
