The winner of Sundance opens Sofia DocuMental – “To Hold a Mountain”
The winner of the Sundance Film Festival opens Sofia DocuMental – To Hold a Mountain marks its first screening before a Bulgarian audience.
The seventh edition of Sofia DocuMental, the documentary film festival focused on human rights, will officially open on September 24, 2026, at the Cinema House with the Bulgarian premiere of To Hold a Mountain by Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić, in the presence of the film’s team.
This year, under the motto Keep Your Eyes Peeled Sofia DocuMental will officially launch its programme on September 24 with To Hold a Mountain, winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The co-production between Serbia, France, Montenegro, Slovenia and Croatia, directed by Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić, offers a captivating and truthful portrayal of the lives of a woman and a young girl in the mountains of Montenegro, where the landscape is threatened with becoming a NATO military training ground.
The camera observes both the mountain landscape and the people who inhabit it, transforming what initially appears to be an ordinary story into an epic. Two thousand metres above sea level, in the mountains of Montenegro, 13-year-old Nada lives with the elderly Gara, whom she calls her mother. The two make their living from and alongside their animals - taking them out to pasture, milking them and searching for those that have strayed. Yet dangers lurk within this idyllic timelessness. There are rumours of bloodthirsty wolves. The authorities intend to use the area as a NATO training ground. Meanwhile, Nada’s father is due to be released from prison after serving time for a serious crime.
The jury that awarded Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival described To Hold a Mountain as “a true example of the power of cinema to turn the personal into the political.”
According to Martichka Bozhilova, director of Sofia DocuMental: “The poetic cinematography and the delicacy with which the most intimate moments in this family’s life are presented do not mask, but rather deepen the seriousness of the political and existential themes at the heart of the film. The protagonists Nada and Gara move us with their unconditional love and care for life, quietly defending what they have while standing up against violence and power. We are extremely happy that a film of such quality will not only open this year’s edition of Sofia DocuMental, but is also a product of the development programme of the Balkan Documentary Center, the festival’s organiser. We believe that the prestigious recognition at the Sundance Film Festival is only the first of many more to come, and that Bulgarian audiences will wholeheartedly embrace the film and share the emotions it evokes.”
The full programme of Sofia DocuMental 2026 will be available at www.documental.bg at the beginning of September.