10/01/2014 - After opening a cinema in Romania in 2013, Cine Grand tackles Sofia in a 100-screen plan for the next five years

Cine Grand, an exhibitor with cinemas in India and China, is opening a new venue in Sofia, Bulgaria. The Cine Grand Sofia opens this weekend in a market currently dominated by two distribution chains, Forum Film and Alexandra. Located in the centre of Sofia, the new cinema has six screens with a total of 1258 seats and all the screens are equipped with 3D digital systems.

According to a press release, the cinema will show Bulgarian, Hollywood and worldwide films. During the first weekend, Cine Grand will host the first screenings of domestic film Rapid Response Corps 2, the sequel to a successful action comedy directed by Stanislav Donchev and released in 2013. The programme also features Pedro Almodovar's I'm So Excited [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Susanne Bier's Love Is All You Need [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

The cinema chain has already approached the Romanian market, where small towns still lack screens because many old cinemas were transformed into pubs or casinos after the '89 Revolution. Cine Grand opened a five-screen cinema with a total of almost 450 seats in the town of Botosani in July 2013 and plans to open a new venue in Bucharest in 2014. There are plans to open cinemas all around the country, with as many as 100 screens being available by 2018.

Cine Grand also plans to consolidate its strength in the Bulgarian market with three cinemas to be opened before the end of the year, one of them in the seaside town of Bourgas. The chain will also open a cinema in Greece and now prospects expansion possibilities in Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova.