Dumitru Budrala, the director of Astra FF: “It was almost impossible to start a film festival in the ’90s.”
A world-renowned film festival - Astra Film Festival was born in 1993, as a first attempt to promote documentary film. 27 years have passed since then, the memories have piled up, and the festival has developed with each edition. I talked to the festival director - Dumitru Budrala, who told me what it was like during communism, how he came up with the idea of a film festival and what were the challenges he encountered during these 27 years. A delightful interview, full of history and great stories, which take us back to the time when the internet did not exist, TV had just appeared, and the Romanian administration really didn't give a damn about culture. About what it was like in those days to organize a film festival compared to the present times.
Film producer and founder of ADFR, she dreamed since she was little of having a magazine one day. Alongside her job as editor-in-chief, she writes the interview of the month. She loves animals, jazz music and films festivals.
