Competition "He Who Saved One Human Life...": Last Month for Creative Submissions

Less than a month remains until the final of the XIII International Literary and Film Student Competition “He Who Saves One Human Life, Saves the Whole Universe”, organized by the Center for Bulgarian-Jewish Cooperation “Aleph”.

Until March 1, 2026, students aged 15 to 19 from all over Europe and Israel can participate in the creative competition with a literary work or video story.

The theme on which young authors will have to create their works is “In the Leading Role: Humanity”. To participate in the competition, they will have to use their imagination to recreate the dark years of the Holocaust, to tell about the persecuted Jewish population awaiting deportation to the death camps, and about the humanity and courage of the Bulgarians, which led to the unprecedented act of saving the Bulgarian Jews.

Through the means of literature or with the methods of cinema, students will have to go back to the time of the Second World War, to tell about the anxieties, fear and hopes of the people, but also to draw conclusions and make references to our present, in which wars are being fought in many places around the world, human life is increasingly devalued, and values such as humanism and empathy are starting to become scarce.

Literary works will be evaluated by an international jury, divided into two subcategories – for participants from Bulgaria and abroad. Authors must present a short story in the candidate's native language, written specifically for this competition, unpublished and not participating in other competitions. The maximum allowable volume of the stories is 4 computer pages, Times New Roman font, 12 points.

Candidates who have prepared a video story of 5–10 minutes in length must send it in Bulgarian or in their native language, but with subtitles in English. Both individual and group projects are allowed to participate in the category.

It is recommended that the video story contain some of the following elements: individual memories, interviews on the topic, documentation of personal history, video story of places where dramatic events took place during the Holocaust, flash mob, artistic reconstructions, staging of plots on the topic, etc.

Competition materials are sent to the organizers' email address: [email protected]. Participants must indicate their full names, school, class, a short resume, full correspondence address, telephone number and email for contact. Each participant presents only one work.

This year, the 30 best participants from Bulgaria and abroad will be invited to participate in the International Youth Film and Literary Festival “Friendship – Meaning and Salvation” in Burgas, Bulgaria, organized by the “Aleph” Center, entirely at the expense of the organizers.

The event will take place in May 2026 and includes the conducting of creative writing workshops, film classes, film screenings, exhibitions, literary readings and meetings with prominent writers and film figures.

Part of the festival is the award ceremony, at which the winners of the competition will be announced. They will receive cash prizes, certificates and the opportunity to participate in prestigious youth forums in Bulgaria and abroad.

Those ranked I, II and III in the “Bulgarian Authors” category will have the opportunity to apply for year-round state scholarships.

For another year, the competition receives high recognition both nationally and internationally and will be held under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Bulgaria and the Museum of the History of Polish Jews “Polin” in Warsaw.

For the “Aleph” Center, this is an expression of trust in its long-standing mission to engage young people with topics of key importance related to historical memory and universal human values. To date, over 2,200 young people from Bulgaria, Austria, Poland, Germany, Israel, Slovakia, Ukraine, Latvia, Hungary, Spain, France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Great Britain and Romania have participated in the competition.

The competition not only gives a platform for the manifestation of creative skills, but also proves to be a means of building a civic position and forming human virtues. The organizers hope that now, when the memory of the past and the lessons from it are especially needed, they will attract even more young supporters of the idea of peace and humanism.