The week begins with the European Film Festival in Bucharest, which brings must-see screenings, including the latest film from Luca Guadagnino. We also get to see a remastered version of a Romanian classic from the 90s, a French comedy, a magical animation, and an Icelandic film that you can decide whether goes as a dark comedy or a drama.

Sundays on Leave / È pericoloso sporgersi (dir. Nae Caranfil)

Nae Caranfil’s debut film premiered at Cannes in 1993 and is back in cinemas nationwide in a remastered version.

È pericoloso sporgersi follows Horațiu, a conscript soldier, Cristina, a senior in high school, and Dino, a second-rate actor. The story is retold from the perspective of each one of them in a comedy about youth, frustrations, crises, broken taboos, and life in ’80s Romania.

Caranfil’s distinctive humor blends with the constant fear and insecurities experienced in the communist era, humanizing the characters and bringing them closer to viewers, even now, 30 years later.

The film can be watched in cinemas from May 19.

The New Toy / Le nouveau jouet (dir. James Huth)

Sami lives happily with his expecting wife in a poor urban housing project amongst friends and neighbours. In order to support his family, he reluctantly takes a job as a night watchman in a luxury goods store owned by Philippe Etienne, the richest man in France.

After his wife’s death, Philippe devoted himself entirely to his business and his son, Alexandre. On the boy’s birthday, he opens the toy department of the store and tells Alexandre he can take whatever he wants. Alexandre chooses Samy.

Inspired by Le Jouet (dir. Francis Veber, 1970), James Huth offers the audience a film for the whole family where children can laugh at the plight of poor Sami, and parents too can laugh or rather cringe at the implied commentary on life in capitalist society, where the poorest are truly the property of the rich.

The film hits theatres on May 19.

Bones and All (dir. Luca Guadagnino)

Luca Guadagnino’s latest film brings love and horror together. Maren is a young woman with unusual urges that prove to be too much even for her father. After he abandons her, she sets out to find her mother.

On her journey, she meets Lee, a disenfranchised drifter who shares her nature. Young, in love, and hungry for blood, the two embark on an adventure constantly oscillating between the present and the past that haunts each of them.

Bones and All is a raw, explicit, shocking film. Fans of intense stories, however, will be happy to discover a horror that explores more than just jump scares. Timothée Chalamet, Taylor Russell, and Mark Rylance are captivating in their roles as outcasts of society.

Bones and All can be seen at Elvire Popesco Cinema, as part of the European Film Festival, on May 20.

As mentioned in the introduction, the EFF program is full of must-see films, such as Music (dir. Angela Schanelec, Germany), winner of the Screenplay Award at the Berlinale 2023, which Flavia Dima describes as “very simple and very difficult to portray in descriptive terms” in her festival diary for Films in Frame.

Other titles that may catch your eye are A Cautionary Tale (dir. Ilinca Călugăreanu, Romania), Samsara (dir. Lois Patiño, Spain), Woman on the Roof (dir. Anna Jadowska, Poland), Dear Thomas (dir. Andreas Kleinert, Germany). The complete program is available on the festival website.

Under the Tree / Undir trénu (dir. Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson)

Until August 14, when this year’s edition of the Anonimul Festival is set to kick off, every 20th of the month, we meet at Warmup Anonimul XX. On May 20, at Elvire Popesco Cinema, we have the chance to (re)discover the 2018 Anonimul Trophy winner, Under the Tree.

Convinced that he cheated on her, Agnes kicks Atli out and forbids him from seeing their daughter, Ása. Ati moves back in with his parents, Baldwin and Inga, who are in a bitter dispute with their next-door neighbours. They want them to cut down the tree in their backyard because it casts a shadow over their sundeck, but the two don’t even want to hear about it.

Quiet suburban life turns into hell as the feud escalates and the decent citizens engage in essentially worthless battles.

Mavka. The Forest Song / Mavka. Lisova pisnya (dir. Oleh Malamuzh, Oleksandra Ruban)

Based on the 1911 poetic play The Forest Song / Lisova pisnya by Lesya Ukrainka, Mavka. The Forest Song is an animated fairy tale about the hardest choice of all: love or duty?

Mavka is the Guardian of Forest, and Lucas is a musician whose kindness wins Mavka over. However, her duty is to protect the forest, and the mere presence of a human disturbs the existence of the spirits and magical creatures inhabiting it.

The mesmerising atmosphere created by the soundtrack and Disney-style animation will have you watching the scenes in awe, no matter your age.

The film is playing in cinemas across the country.

Melissa Antonescu

Writer, photographer and videographer. For Films in Frame she writes news about the latest happenings in the film world and brings to the readers' attention the productions that can be seen at the cinema. When she's not writing articles, she's photographing people in a small studio or searching for new cake recipes.