abstract: The film society in Shumen, founded in 1926, was among the first in Bulgaria to have an amateur-filmmaking club. The society's cameraman was a local photographer, and the projectionist from one of the town's cinemas became its film director. Two of Shumen's earliest amateur films survived: An Adventure in Indiana (1937), a naive "tribute" to Indian Westerns, and Madara (1940), a documentary about an ancient sanctuary and proto-Bulgarian cult center. Still in existence to this day, the film club in Shumen confirms the evolution of the amateur movement in Bulgaria: a trajectory that went from film culture dissemination to active filmmaking.
A N Donev (Wed,) studied this question.