Actor
Biography
Sixty stage roles, and the discipline of a film school behind them. Valentin Ganev was born in Rousse on 7 April 1956 and trained not as a stage actor but at VGIK in Moscow, in Sergei Bondarchuk's class, graduating in 1981. The theatres came in sequence — Pernik, Salza i Smyah, Teatar Sofia, the Small City Theatre Zad Kanala — and from 1996 he has been in the company of the Ivan Vazov National Theatre, where his Higgins, his Gloucester and his Polonius belong to the repertoire of the house. He has three Askeer awards for best actor, in 1998, 2001 and 2019, and two Ikars. He directs as well as acts, including The Merry Widow and Cabaret at the Stefan Makedonski Musical Theatre, and has worked steadily in international film since East-West in 1999.