The films awarded during the fourth University student film festival “Ranno pile” (“The Early Bird”) were shown last night at the Artnewscafe – Plovdiv with the assistance of the American foundation in Bulgaria.

The university student film festival “Ranno pile” was developed by the American foundation in Bulgaria with the idea to be the natural branch of their programs to finance film making. The first such film festival was held in May 2005, in the Bulgarian Cinema Centre.

Part of the festival since the very beginning were the master classes, lead by people like Florian Gallenberger (young German director, winner of two Oscar prizes), Ronald Harwood (British dramatist and writer, winner of one Oscar prize for best scenario adaptation – for “The Pianist”).

The jury throughout the years included Rangel Valchanov (Bulgaria), Silvio Fishbein (Argentina), Henry Vershatel (Belgium), Arik Kaplun (Israel).

The fourth film festival “Ranno pile” took place in the “Home of cinema” Sofia from October 15th to 18th 2008. Aside from the works of bulgarian cinema universities, student-made films from Serbia, Romania, Greece, Croatia, Albania and Turkey were also shown.

This time around, guests of the festival and members of the jury were the British script-writer Roger Gregory and his American colleague John Burnstein. They also offered master classes to the students and the audience.