About the Film Series

"The Ancient Civilization" is a film series of independent historical cinema, revealing the ancient past of the Bulgarian lands and the entire Balkans.

Screenings of the films from the series are free and open to everyone.

Each film will present something separate but fundamental, until the whole picture becomes clear and we fill all the gaps.

The films are presented at live screenings, before an audience, in cinemas, cultural centers, community centers, libraries, and other venues.

The first three films from the series — "The Jade Rulers", "The Valley of the Thracian Temples", and "Masters of the Horses" — are on screen and have had nearly 100 screenings in Bulgaria and abroad.

More films are coming that will surprise the viewers and fans of the series.

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As a symbol and meaning of the series, we chose the Great Goddess Mother, seated on a throne, resting her hands on two lions. The image is 8,000 years old, found in Asia Minor, in one of the most ancient cities there, and it has been preserved and endured through millennia, passing into the Thracian Goddess Cybele almost unchanged.

We know her as Cybele, in other places she is known as Sibele, in others — Caprina, elsewhere — the Mother Goddess, in others — the Great Goddess, and so on.

In antiquity, the cult spread so widely that it reached north to England, south to Egypt, west to Spain, and east to India — across three continents. Entire statues of this Goddess, life-sized, painted with colors, welcomed travelers from city gates and temples.

And yes, the stylistics and depictions vary — sometimes the Goddess wears a headscarf, other times a large hat or a small one, very often the lions have human faces or are lionesses, panthers. Sometimes the depictions are crude, other times highly stylized, but in essence the supreme Goddess is one and the same — enduring through millennia.