May has some of the busiest days when it comes to film festivals in Bucharest, in the country and outside Romanian boarders. We will talk briefly about May’s schedule and which festivals opened their registrations for the competitive sections. Among others, you will find out more about the European Film Festival, Kinodiseea, Cannes, DocuartFest.

The European Film Festival

“The European Film Festival endeavours to prove that cinema can proactively and deliberately generate a genuine advance in society.”

The 21st edition of the festival will take place in Bucharest (May 4-11), Iași (May 12-14), Tîrgu Mureș (May 19-21), Gura Humorului (May 19-21) and Timișoara (May 26-28). Paul Negoescu is the ambassador of this year’s edition, continuing a decade of tradition: to allow Romanian filmmakers to testify for the European film.

“[…] Moreover, in times that seem to get more and more divisive, the cinema upholds as a social hard core able to bring us together, and the European film makes no exception.” Paul Negoescu, Honorific ambassador of the European Film Festival, 2017.

The festival will open at MNAR – The National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest, where the special section dedicated to arts, ARTE@MNAR, will be hosted. The section will contain an audio-video installation through which the audience will discover the history of modern art through the private collection of Sergius Ivanovich Sukin and will discover Hieronymus Bosch’s work through VR technology.

Among the films that can be watched in this year’s special screenings, we have to mention: My life as a zucchini, Toni Erdmann and As I open my eyes/ A peine j’ouvre les yeux (part of the LUX section, which brings the three finalist films of the most recent edition of LUX Prizes of the European Parliament), The girl without hands, The Rabbi’s cat, The French Minister (in the special section dedicated to Comic books).

The Romanian Film Nights Festival

“From their love for the Romanian cinema, a bunch of journalism students created a Romanian film festival, the only one of this kind in the country.”

The festival’s 8^th edition will take place in Iași between 10 and 14 of May. The film selection was made by Cristian Mungiu together with Irina Margareta Nistor (the cultural ambassador of the festival). This year, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Palm d’Or Prize received for 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days, the schedule also contains a retrospection of Cristian Mungiu’s work.

“The festival has included sections towards which we were guided by Cristian Mungiu: Documentary, Best Romanian Films, New Romanian Cinema, Romanian Film Days Caravan. The most important thing is that we will meet again in Iași, in May, when the Film Land Rises – Cinefilia, will be full of endeared Romanian actors and directors, well-known and much appreciated, who must meet with the youth and whom we all must value”. – Andrei Giurgia, the Festival’s director

Among the films that can be seen this year at the festival, there are new and old titles of the Romanian cinema, well known and successful, as: Trois exercices d’interprétation (director Cristi Puiu), Tuesday, after Christimas (director Radu Muntean), 6.9 on the richter scale (director Nae Caranfil), Two Lottery Tickets (director Paul Negoescu), Police, Adjective (director Corneliu Porumboiu), Beyond the Hills (director Cristian Mungiu), Dogs (director Bogdan Mirică), Sieranevada (director Cristi Puiu), whose chronic written by Cezar Gheorghe for RFD can be read here, Scarred Hearts (directed by Radu Jude), Eastern Business (directed by Igor Cobileanski), Fixeur (directed by Adrian Sitaru), etc. This year’s full schedule can be found here.

KINOdiseea altFEL

KINOdiseea, the biggest film festival dedicated to children, will have this year a premiere, an intermediary edition. During the Different Week (Săptămâna Altfel), between 15 and 21 of May, in Bucharest (The Romanian Peasant Museum Cinema and Hollywood Multiplex), Arad (Arta Cinema), Cluj-Napoca (Dacia Cinema) and Pitești (Triviale Cinema) there will be film screenings and a musical theatre play.

Some of the films that can be seen during this week are the winners of KINOdiseea Prize for Best Film from the previeous years like: Ponyo (directed by Hayao Miyazaki), winner of Best Film at KINOdiseea 2012 edition and of Gold Lion at Venice Film Festival, Labyrinthus, the winner from 2015 and Blanka, Best Film at KINOdiseea 2016 edition.

The full calendar of the event can be found on KINOdiseea website.

In May, in addition to the above mentioned festivals, there will also take place Este Film at Sibiu, between 4 and 7 of May, BUZZ CEE (Buzău International Film Festival), between 9 and 14 of May, and PIFF (Ploiești International Film Festival), between 11 and 14 of May.

Festival de Cannes

“We are going through a political phase in France with the presidential elections which will take place right before Cannes. We hope the festival will be a moment which will provide us the opportunity to talk only about cinema, but Cannes cannot ignore the politics.” – Pierre Lescure, Festival President

As you already know, one of the most prestigious film festivals, Festival de Cannes, takes place in May, where Romania has a privileged position this year thanks to Cristian Mungiu, who is the Jury’s president of the short film official competition and of the Cinéfondation program, and thanks to the Romanian Short Waves 10 program.

In this program, as part of the Short Film Corner, 11 Romanian short films produced in 2016 will be screened: Mamă, tată, am să vă spun ceva (directed by Paul Mureșan), Cumulonimbus (directed by Ioana Mischie), Spid (directed by Bogdan Mureșan), Almania (directed by Groves, Groves), Bună ziua la pisici (directed by Bednarszky Hedda), Ninel (directed by Constantin Popescu), Săracul Arpi (directed by Serestely Szilard), Offstage (directed by Andrei Huțuleac), Anathema (directed by Andreea Borțun), Dreams on Sale (directed by Vlad Buzaianu), Când vânatul merge-n Rai (directed by Ioana Turcan).

The official selection of Cannes 2017 Film Festival was announced on Thursday, 13 April, and no Romanian production entered the feature-length and short competitions. This year, 18 films were nominated for Palme d’Or trophy, including the film of American director Sofia Coppola, The Beguiled, Rodin (directed by Jacques Doillon), Wonderstruck (directed by Todd Haynes), L’amant double (directed by François Ozon) etc.

During the entire festival, 49 films from 29 countries and nine debut films will be screened. The festival also includes 12 films directed by women.

For movie directors, producers and co-producers and students interested:

We remind you that the festival dedicated exclusively to Romanian documentaries, Docuart Fest, opened registration for the 6^th edition. The festival has three competitive sections: main section, student and one section dedicated to television documentary.

Registration can be done by filling up the online form until July 2^nd, 2017. The regulation can be found on the official website of the festival.

The Festival will take place this year between September 26 and October 1^st.

The Arkadia ShortFest International Film Festival also opened submissions for its fourth edition. The festival has two international sections: competitive section (student fiction short film) and non-competitive section (professional fiction short film, documentary or animation). All films registered must be produced after 1^st of January 2014 and must have a maximum length of 30 minutes.

The regulation and register form can be found on the festival’s official website. The last day of submission is 1^st of July 2017. This year, the festival will take place between 1 and 3 September at Camexip Factory in Băicoi, Prahova.

We also remind you that the last day for subscribing your film project to Transilvania Pitch Stop, for the 20.000 euro prize, is Thursday, on April 27, 2017. Find out more about this project reading our article here.

Moreover, registration deadlines for the teenage workshop Let’s Go Digital from TIFF (Transilvania International Film Festival) were extended until May 5, 2017. Regulation and more details about this workshop can be found here.

Romina Banu

Photographer and editor; she co-founded Dissolved Magazine together with Melissa. For Films in Frame she gathers film and TV series recommendations for lazy weekends and she writes about interesting projects from the film industry. Other than that, she likes traveling, chilling with her cats and sleeping.