For many, November is simply the month before December. For cinema lovers, though, November is the month of the largest film festival in Bulgaria, Kinomania (Cinema mania).

The 14th edition of the festival will show 55 titles in Hall 1 of the National Palace of Culture (NDK) and Lumiere Cinema from November 5 to 18.

According to NDK director Hristo Drumev, Kinomania 2001 has two major differences from previous editions of the event. The first distinction is that almost half of the movies will come to Bulgaria and be shown here only for the festival. In addition, the non-U.S. titles seriously outnumber the U.S. ones - the ratio is 37 to 18, which shows a definite preference for European cinema.

This year's repertoire offers a variety of genres - comedy, thriller, science fiction, action, historical, children's and art films. Drumev underlined at a press conference last Wednesday that there are no action films with terrorist plots included in the festival.

Kinomania will traditionally be opened with the showing of the Bulgarian film Fate As a Rat directed by Ivan Pavlov. A Bulgarian movie will also close the festival - The Devil's Tail directed by Dimitar Petkov.

For the first time, this year the Kinomania repertoire will also include a panorama of British movies. The British Film Festival 2001, organized by the British Council, will show 14 titles of the avant-garde director Derek Jarman and four recent Scottish films. After the end of Kinomania, the movies from the British Film Festival will be shown in Hall Europe of the Festival and Congress Centre in Varna from November 16 to 22.

"We decided this year to put the British Film Festival within the larger Kinomania event," said Kevin Lewis, director of the British Council, on Tuesday. "That was done partly to make the whole event even bigger."

He added that that way all films will benefit from being put and presented together. According to Lewis most of the films have not been shown in Bulgaria.

"The festival is a major event for all those who are interested in the work of the great director Derek Jarman," Lewis commented. "His films are highly personal and artistic."

According to cinema critics, Jarman's background as a painter could be seen in the highly imaginative nature of his films. The director is considered one of Britain's most original, visionary, independent and controversial film-makers. During the 1970s Jarman made three independent low-budget films - Sebastiane, Jubilee and The Tempest - which will be shown at the festival. They all caused serious negative reactions and something of a stir. For the next seven years Jarman worked on his film Caravaggio which also will be shown during the cinema event. During that time the director was diagnosed with HIV and died in 1994.

Presenting the British Film Festival 2001, Lewis also pointed out that the showing of four fairly new Scottish films, especially after the Days of Scottish Literature and the concert by Scottish band Deaf Shepherd at the inauguration of the new British Council building, was a very deliberate progression towards showing contemporary Scottish art.

Among the exotic titles at the Kinomania festival is the Indian movie Monsoon Wedding by Mira Nair, which is arriving with the prestigious Golden Lion award from Venice. Visitors to the festival will also see the premiere of Ermanno Olmi's Il Mestiere delle Armi (Profession of Arms), which was a special selection from Cannes 2001. The movie was filmed in Bulgaria with the participation of Bulgarian actors Hristo Zhivkov, Dimitar Rachkov and Dessislava Tenekidjieva.

Among the titles most anticipated by film fans is the premiere of the U.S. movie shot in Bulgaria, The Grey Zone, starring Harvey Keitel. The organizers of Kinomania are expecting Keitel to come for the movie's showing.