2020 announces to be a bright year for Romanian film. Romania keeps a constant presence and doesn’t go unnoticed in the international festivals.The most anticipated films by directors Radu Jude and Cristi Puiu are screening right now at Berlinale, and the last edition of the Europalia festival was dedicated to a great retrospective of Romanian cinema.

Today, however, we turn our attention away from film festivals and focus on Romanian movie theaters, where the March program looks promising, with several national releases that shouldn’t be missed out.

Find out below which are the films we look forward to, and their release date:

colectiv (dir. Alexander Nanau)

Premiere: 02/28/2020

The Colectiv club fire remains a tragic and important moment in Romania’s recent history. The documentary presents the aftermath of the event, the one that was made public, as well as the one that took place behind the scenes.

Alexander Nanau’s film follows the Xehi Pharma scandal, its cover up, as well as the journalistic investigations that have brought to light the details and corruption within the medical system.

Variety describes the film as a documentary that “doesn’t just open your eyes, but tears you apart by exposing a moral rift with resonance far beyond the film’s home country.”

Presented at festivals such as TIFF, Sundance, Venice, colectiv will premiere at Veranda Mall, in the presence of the team, on February 28. More details can be found here.

Legacy (dir. Dorian Boguță)

Premiere: 03/06/2020

Legacy, Dorian Boguță’s directing debut in feature film, tells the story of Anton, a pianist who has disappeared. The further investigation reveals his past, relationships and other troubles.

The film premiered at the Francophone International Film Festival and is the first Romanian film starring actress Mădălina Ghenea.

According to the director, “Legacy is about someone desperately trying to leave something behind, which only got him to play God, and that leads to catastrophic consequences. […] Legacy is about the perfect, the deepest and most true love that can exist between two people.” (source Mediafax.ro)

Ivana the Terrible (dir. Ivana Mladenovic)

Premiere 03/13/2020

In Ivana the Terrible, the Serbian-born director and actress turns the camera on her family, staging moments of her life. Ivana Mladenovic and her real family are the characters of this intimate film, which talks about the difficulty of finding your own place, about the issues that come with success, about the complicated relationships with family, stress and vulnerability.

The film received the Filmmakers of the Present Ciné+ Special Jury Prize at Locarno 2019. And here you can find an interview with the director and protagonist of the film.

5 Minutes Too Late (dir. Dan Chişu)

Premiere: 03/27/2020

Based on a real event, the action of 5 Minutes Too Late is centered around Nicu Holban, the man who leads the gendarmes’ intervention at a movie theater where, at the screening of a film featuring a female gay couple, a conflict escalates and, as a result, a young man ends up in a coma.

Liliana Calomfir is the journalist who decides to investigate the event and find out why the gendarmes crew did not intervene in due time.

The film had its world premiere at the Warsaw Film Festival.

BONUS:

Uppercase Print (dir. Radu Jude)

Premiere: 21/02/2020

The latest film by Radu Jude, now at Berlinale, presents from two perspectives the story of Mugur Călinescu, a Romanian teenager who in 1981 wrote graffiti messages of protest against the regime of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. The first perspective is an adaptation of Gianina Cărbunariu’s documentary play based on the files of the Romanian secret police, and the second one uses archive footage from Romanian TV from the era.

Uppercase Print is not released in March, in fact it runs in cinemas this month, but on March 3, at the Peasant Museum Cinema, from 7.45 pm, a special screening will take place, in the presence of the team, followed by a Q&A session. More details can be found here.

And for more details about the film, you can read the interview with Gianina Cărbunariu, Ioana Iacob and Șerban Lazarovici on Uppercase Print.

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.