A group of around 25 to 30 nationalists attempted to halt the screening in Sofia on Sunday evening of a film depicting a relationship between two women.
The men appeared to be connected with the far-right Bulgarian National Union party and Lukovmarch, an annual event in commemoration of WWII general Hristo Lukov, often criticised for providing a forum for neo-Nazis to gather.
Police were called and the film, ‘Eggshells’ by director Slava Doytcheva, was eventually screened at The Steps, a venue recently opened by the Single Step Foundation, which supports the local LGBT community.
“Yes, this was another attack on an event hosted by the society, another attempt at a physical threat to make us to step back and cancel the screening. But the screening took place,” GLAS Foundation, the co-organisers of the event, said in a statement on Monday.
“There’s a need for an appropriate reaction from law enforcement and those in power, who through their inaction have validated such incidents,” it added.
The incident follows other disruptions of LGBT events this month, all possibly connected to far-right organisations.
“I see these organised assaults as part of the noise around the forthcoming elections,” said Ivan Dimov of Single Step Foundation.
Like Dimov, a lot of activists also see the recent incidents as organised by nationalist parties which want to gain credibility for the July 11 elections, which follow the inconclusive polls on April 4, when all far-right parties failed to surmount the 4 per cent threshold to get parliamentary seats.
On May 26, a discussion event at The Steps around popular children’s book ‘Mravin and Planet Forest’, a same-sex love story set in a fairytale world, was also interrupted by nationalist groups who defaced the venue’s windows.
“Some of the people from last night were the same who disturbed the previous event. All of them masked, in black, identifying with the Bulgarian National Union and Lukovmarch, and most probably not even 18 years old,” said Dimov.
The same happened in Plovdiv on May 27, in the building of the local National Radio branch, where a LGBT-related book launch was disrupted at the local National Radio building in the city of Plovdiv on May 27, by protesters described by local media as football hooligans, who managed to break through a security cordon. Last year, teenagers in Plovdiv were a subject of physical homophobic attacks.
On May 15, the seaside city Burgas hosted its first Pride event, which was surrounded by conservative protesters, many of whom were organised by ultra-nationalist and pro-Russia party Vazrajdane.
The screening of ‘Eggshells’ on Sunday was part of the cultural programme connected to the annual Sofia Pride, which has grown in popularity in recent years.
The programme continues on Monday with ‘Charlatan’, a film by acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Holland, telling the story of Czech faith healer Jan Mikolasek.
