Audiovideo Orpheus Inc is property of the Ministry of Culture of Republic of Bulgaria. The company was founded over 20 years ago to produce, preserve and distribute audiovisual products and to perform presentation activities.
With Decree ¹ 162 of the National Assembly, dated May 16th 2003 the company was included in the List of Art. 3, Paragraph 1 of the Law on Privatization and Post-privatization Control and for that reason it cannot be subject to privatization.
As early as 1995 the Orpheus Company defined as its priority the development of a new base for filming, specializing in film and video shooting on sound stages. Since then by investing its own resources, the company has built and equipped 5 different - as type and size - sound stages, where it provides services in shooting films, advertisements, shows, TV games, video clips, photo sessions. In this way the company confirms the specific, complex character of the audiovisual product as a synthesis of image, sound and space, realized with the means of modern electronic equipment and artistic solutions.
In cooperation with the Institute of Art Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, ORPHEUS participated in the academic conferences The Cinema of the 21st Century – Art and Technology – 1979, The Audiovisual Art and the Cultural Dialogue on the Balkans – 2003. The company has sponsored many academic publications in the sphere of visual arts.
Audiovideo Orpheus Inc has registered as a film producer under ¹2004100031 in the Film Producers’ Register. As such it has participated in the creation of Bulgarian and foreign film coproductions: The Road To Ithaca, feature film, Dir. C. Dimitriou, Cyprus, 1998; N.T.Fedorenko, doc. series 7 episodes, Dir. M. Krastev, Bulgaria-1998, Fantasy Concerto, Dir. K. Georgieva, USA-2001, Grand Prix for Animation at Thessalonica Film Festival 2002; Games, Dir. K Georgieva, USA-2002; Church For Wolves, TV feature series, 12 episodes, Dir. N. Lambrev, Bulgaria-2005; coproducer with the National Film Center of the documentary film Home For Our Children, Dir. P. Popzlatev, Bulgaria-2004; executive producer of the documentary film When We Die of Bulgarian National Television, Dir. G. Kraleva, 2005, executive producer of the documentary film Pavel Vezhinov of Bulgarian National Television, Dir. G. Kraleva, 2008.
The company cooperates with the National Culture Fund of the Ministry of Culture on restoration of films which is part of their program on national cultural-historical heritage.
In accordance with an agreement with the National Film Center and Filmautor since May 2002, Audiovideo Orpheus Inc has printed and distributed on DVD and VHS cassettes over 260 Bulgarian feature and documentary films. It also offers those films for sale via the internet. Since 2004 it produces digitally restores Bulgarian films on DVD with subtitles in 5 foreign languages. In 2006 Audiovideo Orpheus Inc received the Award of the Association Academica 21 “For Contribution in the Popularization of Bulgarian Film Art.”
After winning a competition in 2004, Audiovideo Orpheus Inc was assigned by the Council of Ministers of Republic of Bulgaria to implement scientific and creative control and management over the exceptionally important activities of restoration, conservation and preservation of the national film fund, which is owned by the Bulgarian Film Archive.
During the last 10 years Audiovideo Orpheus Inc offers technical facilities and holds practical studies with students of different film departments from the National Academy of Theater and Film Art, Sofia University, New Bulgarian University, Southwestern University, National Art Academy.
The Managing Director of Audiovideo Orpheus Inc, Prof. DSc N. Lazarov is a director of photography. He holds a patent ¹64327 for an invention in the sphere of transfer of digital images on film. He has shot many feature and documentary films that won prizes at different film festivals. Author of the books, among them The Art and Technique of Visual Effects (2000) and Gold 24 Frames per Second (2006).
Prof. Lazarov is Chairman of the National Technical Commission at the National Film Center and member of the European Federation of Cinematographers.
