On November 22, in Sofia, within the 38th edition of the Kinomania Festival and as part of the program of the Festival for European Solidarity, we will see Berlinguer. The Great Ambition for the first time—the same film that also opened the 19th Film Festival in Rome a month earlier, on October 16. One of the most interesting authors of contemporary Italian cinema, Andrea Segre, brings the biography of Enrico Berlinguer (Elio Germano), head of the Italian Communist Party from 1972 to 1984, to the big screen. The film follows his journey to Sofia in 1973, when he avoided what many believe was an assassination attempt by the Bulgarian Secret Services, to the assassination of Aldo Moro in 1978 and the subsequent dramatic end of the strategy of the “Historical Compromise”—the landmark effort to unite Catholic and Socialist popular forces in the governance of Italy. The film is a co-production of Italy, Belgium, and Bulgaria in the person of Agitprop, Martichka Bozhilova, with the support of the EA National Film Center. Bulgarian actors have roles in the film, including Svetoslav Dobrev as Todor Zhivkov and Nikolay Danchev as Leonid Brezhnev.

Organizers: Kinomania, National Palace of Culture, and the I Have an Idea Foundation