Beyond the White Walls
July 16 and 18, 2026
Swimming Pool & Botanical Garden of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
In collaboration with KADIST and as part of Double Takes – the organization’s international video program – this year’s Nine Elephants Festival presents a two-part film program taking place at Swimming Pool and the Botanical Garden of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The selected films resonate with the festival’s theme of the city as a living and changing body – ecological, emotional, remembering, and collective.
The first screening, taking place on July 16 at Swimming Pool, will feature films by Jeremy Deller and Christian Jankowski, inviting audiences to reflect on the role of art in shaping, activating, and reimagining public space.
The second screening will take place outdoors at the Botanical Garden of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Ring Road) as part of the Opera Ecologica program. It will feature films by Giselle Beiguelman, Alice Bucknell, Tacita Dean, Olga Grotova, and Driant Zeneli. These works insist on the urgency of listening to the land, plants, rivers, and wind as carriers of stories that outlast empires and their extractive logics.
Double Takes is a program initiated by KADIST in 2023 and developed in collaboration with international partners. Drawing on KADIST’s video collection, it features screenings, conversations, and artistic programs that place artists’ perspectives at the heart of contemporary issues. Each edition is extended on KADIST.tv, KADIST’s video platform.
Photo: Alice Bucknell (still).
With the financial support by KADIST.
Links
Presentation of an audio guide that can be listened to individually or in a group during a walk through the city