We present to you the concept and key vision of this year’s edition of the International Book to Movie Festival CineLibri. The original interpretation of the idea of time and the timeless messages of cinema and literature is authored by Radoslava Boor and Studio Slava.

The motto “Time Regained” marks 100 years since the death of Marcel Proust, one of the icons of literary modernism, author of the monumental novel “In Search of Lost Time”. “Time Regained” is the title of the seventh, last volume of this verbal cathedral, where the tormenting thoughts and insomnia of the hero find hope in the creative process, the only antidote against the irreversibly one-way flow of time.

The four dimensions of the subjective sense of time are integrated into one vision, in which the infinity sign stands out, coinciding with the number 8 and the number of the festival edition. This sign is also a powerful reference to the endless and unrelenting creative energy that great writers harness, creating imaginary worlds whose projections we seek and sometimes find in reality. For Marcel Proust, for example, the line between life and literature is blurred, which is precisely why the first vision depicts the white sheet, a symbol of every primordial beginning.

The idea of “captured time” was inspired by the work and philosophical insights of director Andrei Tarkovsky. Because the great cinema masterfully manipulates time and deftly fixes it on celluloid tapes: “The man who goes to the cinema goes there for time: for time lost or missed, or for time he has not found.” This is also the second dimension of the key vision at the festival, expressed symbolically with the film tape.

On the other hand, the hour-glass symbolizes unbearable ephemerality, the “lightness of being.” Time, like sand, slips between our fingers before we have had our fill of the moment… Proust himself reminds us how often we sacrifice possible happiness by succumbing to the impatience to satisfy our momentary urge. Here comes the idea that it is precisely this fleetingness, this limited possibility of happiness that increases its value.

The fourth dimension refers to cosmic time, the most spanless, yet even the angle of the incident rays of a setting or rising sun is capable of fixing a moment and giving it the fabulous symbol of a reality experienced in a certain time.

Through this complex vision, the festival defends the idea that the beauty and perfection of a work of art or an intellectual achievement cannot lose its value with time. Creativity helps us to get closer to the other people, to understand what they see from this universe, which – deprived of its creators, thinkers and inventors – would be as unknown as the lunar landscapes. Thanks to art, the only world we know multiplies before our eyes into as many worlds as the original creators, worlds more different from each other than the planets rolling into infinity.

All these ideas will be reflected in a rich, first-class, uncompromising program, crowned by the opening ceremony on October 8 in Hall 1 of the National Palace of Culture and promising 23 days of cinema-literary timelessness, bringing together the 60 best movie adaptations of the past year!

The eighth edition of the International Book to Movie Festival CineLibri will be held between October 8-30 in Sofia and six other cities in Bulgaria: Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas, Veliko Tarnovo, Gabrovo and Stara Zagora. The program will be realized with the support of Sofia Municipality, the National Film Center, the relevant municipalities and with the assistance of many partners and like-minded people, which we are yet to announce. The festival is part of the Cultural Events Calendar of Sofia Municipality for 2022.

The project takes place with the financial support of the National Culture Fund under the action “Program for Recovery and Development of Private Cultural Organizations”.