The 11^th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival, due to take place June 1^st – 10^th, 2012, in the city of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, will feature a consistent program of screenings, masterclasses and special events dedicated to one of the classics of worldwide cinema, Stanley Kubrick, born in New York, with a Romanian background, his grandparents being Romanian Jews.

Classics such as Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Clockwork Orange (1971), The Shining (1980), Barry Lyndon (1976), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Eyes Wide Shut (1999) will be featured in the special program, together with earlier titles in Kubrick's filmography. The films will be shown in new prints, provided by the Warner Bros. Studios.

Christiane Kubrick, the master's wife, Michel Chiment, film critic & FIPRESCI vice-president and Jan Harlan, brother-in-law, executive producer of  Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut and director of portrait docs Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001) & O Lucky Malcolm! (2006) – on the life and career of Clockwork Orange hero Malcolm McDowell will attend the 2012 Transilvania IFF and its Kubrick-dedicated events. These include masterclasses, the screening of Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001) , a presentation & the Romanian release of the Taschen limited edition volume Kubrick’s Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made, a compendium of thousands of pre-production sketches, pictures, set & casting photographs for Kubrick's early 1970s monumental epic, which never got to be shot, despite contracts & advanced preparations, including agreements with the Romanian civil & military authorities for battle scenes shootings in the country, using Romanian soldiers as extras.

Two exhibitions will also feature in the Kubrick program. Sketches, drawings and set projects made by conceptual artist Chris Baker for Steven Spielberg's Artificial Intelligence: AI, featured in the album A.I. Artificial Intelligence: From Stanley Kubrick to Steven Spielberg: The Vision Behind the Film, edited by Jan Harlan, will be shown for the first time in Romania. The other exhibition celebrating the cult author will be showcasing photographs of important moments in Stanley Kubrick's career.

Ana Ularu is one of the 10 European actors selected in the Shooting Stars programme which will take place during Berlin International Film Festival between 11 and 13 of February 2012.

This year, the Shooting Stars programme, organized by the European Film Promotion (EFP) in cooperation with some of EFP member organizations, among which Romanian Film Promotion, and supported by the European Union’s Media Programme, reached its 15 edition. Shooting Stars programme aims to promote at international level the most talented European actors, offering them the possibility to meet important members of the film industry (actors, directors, producers, casting directors).

The 10 actors were selected from a number of 23 nominees, proposed by EFP member organizations. The jury, composed by Marleen Gorris (director), Thure Lindhardt (actor, former participant in the Shooting Stars programme), Ada Solomon (producer), Simone Bär (casting director) and Matt Mueller (film critic) was impressed by the intensity with which Ularu plays her roles, stating: In Outbound, Ularu carries on her shoulders the entire story and manages to create a complex and convincing character. Tough but vulnerable in the same time she makes an impression by the force that she unveils to impose herself, her eyes becoming a mirror of the soul.

Born on the 26 of June 1985 in Bucharest, Ana Ularu graduated from the “National University of Theatre and Cinema Arts I.L.Caragiale. Her career includes different parts in short films, feature films, TV series but also theatre plays.

She made an impression in films such as Turkey Girl, a short film directed by Cristian Mungiu and included in the Lost and Found project, Italian Girls (d. Napoleon Helmis), The paper will be blue (d. Radu Muntean) or Youth without youth (d. Francis Ford Coppola).

Recently, Ana Ularu was casted in Outbound (d. Bogdan Apetri) in the role of a young girl freed from jail for one day trying to get her life straight. This role brought her the Boccalino Trophy – the Swiss Critics Award for Best Actress at the Locarno Film Festival as well as Best Actress Award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival.

The selection in the Shooting Stars programme represents a double achievement for Ana Ularu. On one hand it signifies the recognition of her talent and of her work up to now and on the other hand places her in the cultural and economic network of international cinema. In 2012 Ana Ularu will have the chance to participate, along with other 9 actors, to a series of events, film workshops and meetings with international cinema professionals. Since its beginnings, the Shooting Stars programme launched international careers such as Rachel Weisz, Moritz Bleibtreu, Cecile de France, Daniel Bruhl, Melanie Laurent, Daniel Craig, Kelly Macdonald, Thure Lindhardt, Franka Potente, Eduardo Noriega, Ludivine Sagnier, Jeremie Renier and Jasmine Trinca.

Along with Ana Ularu in the 2012 Shooting Stars programme were also selected: Adèle Haenel (France), Anna Maria Mühe (Germany), Antonia Campbell-Hughes (Ireland), Hilmar Guðjónsson (Iceland), Isabella Ragonese (Italy), Jakub Gierszał (Poland), Bill Skarsgård (Sweden), Max Hubacher (Switzerland) and Riz Ahmed (Great Britain).

Romania is present for the 4^th time in this EFP programme after Dragoş Bucur was selected in 2009, Anamaria Marinca in 2008 and Maria Popistaşu in 2007.

On the 3rd of December, the European Film Academy designated its winners for 2011. The European Film Awards annually honor achievements in European cinema, among them European Film, European Director, European Actress and European Actor.

Among the awarded films for the 2011 edition of the European Film Academy Awards we can find the first 3D feature of director Wim Wenders, “Pina”, screened for the first time in Romania at the 10^th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival. “Pina” was distinguished with the award for “European Film Academy Documentary – Prix ARTE”. The film portrays the exhilarating and inimitable art of this great German choreographer who died in the summer of 2009. Inviting the viewer on a sensual, visually stunning journey of discovery into a new dimension right onto the stage of the legendary ensemble, the film also accompanies the dancers beyond the theatre, into the city and the surrounding industrial landscape of Wuppertal, the place that was the home and centre of Pina Bausch’s creative life for more than 35 years.

Susanne Bier, director of the feature “HÆVNEN” (In a Better World), screened at the 10^th edition of Transilvania IFF, was awarded with the European Director Award. The film, winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, traces elements from a refugee camp in Africa to the grey humdrum of everyday life in a Danish provincial town. The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait. Soon, friendship transforms into a dangerous alliance and a breathtaking pursuit in which life is at stake. Susanne Bier’s new feature film is a drama about the destruction of the idyll and the personal choice between revenge and pacifism.

Another film screened at the 10^th edition of Transilvania IFF, “Oxygen” (“Adem” – Belgium / the Netherlands), directed by Hans van Nuffel, was awarded with the European Discovery Award. The feature tells the story of Tom and his brother Lucas, both suffering from cystic fybrosis, a genetic disease that slowly destroys their lungs. Tom is struggling to cope with his short life expectancy and hangs around with a gang of hoodlums. In the hospital, he meets Xavier, a young man suffering from the same illness but behaving like a top athlete. Xavier is a confirmed optimist, even when he is dumped by his girlfriend Anneleen. Tom takes in Xavier's energy and joy of life, but when his brother dies during lung transplantation surgery, he is inconsolable.

The complete list of the 2011 winners of the European Film Academy Award can be found here.

The Romanian Cultural Institute in New York and the Film Society of Lincoln Center are pleased to announce the line-up for the 6th Annual Romanian Film Festival in New York. After five successful years at Tribeca Cinemas, the festival will move to the Film Society of Lincoln Center and will take place from November 30 - December 6. The 2011 edition of the film festival will be dedicated to the memory of Romanian film critic Alex Leo Serban.

"There's no greater reward or recognition," says Corina Șuteu, director of the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, as well as the initiator and chair of the festival, "than being invited by the Film Society of Lincoln Center to partner in presenting the festival starting this year. I am confident that our consistent work around the inspiring Romanian New Wave achieved such institutional legitimacy. I also am hopeful this is only a new beginning."

"Welcoming the Romanian Film Festival to Lincoln Center feels like a homecoming of sorts," says Film Society Associate Program Director Scott Foundas. "In 2008, the Film Society had the pleasure of working together with the Cultural Institute on a major retrospective of classic and contemporary Romanian cinema, and we are delighted to now present another dynamic program on the 10th anniversary of the Romanian New Wave.”

This year's festival not only offers a change in location and partnership but also in scope and structure. Previous editions of the festival featured an emphasis on showcasing the best and most recent films from Romania’s contemporary cinema, but this year sees an expansion in offering a week-long presentation for the first time ever, offering an overview on the latest Romanian premieres - such as Marian Crisan's MORGEN, Constantin Popescu's PRINCIPLES OF LIFE, Catalin Mitulescu's LOVERBOY, Bogdan George Apetri's OUTBOUND or Radu Gabrea's RED GLOVES – as well as a broad array of special programs providing a more complex perspective on Romanian Cinema.

Romanian Film Festival artistic director, Mihai Chirilov says, “This year's selection of new features shows there is room for innovation and exploration beyond the already celebrated aesthetics of the recent wave of Romanian films. In one way or another, the characters in these movies are driven to go beyond – borders, routine, mundane reality, even themselves. Joining these films are treasures from the past that deserve to be rediscovered, completing the whole picture of contemporary Romanian cinema.”

First and foremost, the festival will honor Liviu Ciulei, one of the legendary masters of Romanian theatre and film, who passed away this October. NYC audiences will get a chance to see, in new prints, produced with the support of the Romanian National Film Center, the very first U.S. retrospective of Ciulei's outstanding directing career.

The Romanian Film Festival in New York City was initiated in 2006 as a partnership of the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York (RCINY) with the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) and Tribeca Cinemas. The partnership with TIFF, Romania’s leading film festival, which continues this year, has extended beyond the NYC festival to facilitate the presence of American film professionals to the past two editions of TIFF, an initiative that will continue and expand. Initiated and chaired by Corina Şuteu, director of RCINY, the festival selection committee also includes Mihai Chirilov, Artistic Director, Scott Foundas, Associate Program Director of FSLC, and Oana Radu.

Tickets are now on sale both at the box office and on-line. A 4-ticket festival package is also available.

More info here.

‘Superman, Spiderman or Batman’, directed by Tudor Giurgiu, premiered within the Romanian Days at the 10th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival, won the prize for Best European Short at the 56th edition of Valladolid International Film Festival (22nd – 29th October).

The prize consists of 2,000 euro and in the inclusion of the film on the list of the 15 shorts that will compete at the European Film Awards 2012. Thus, ‘Superman, Spiderman or Batman’ is the first Romanian film competing for the European Oscar, which will be awarded on the 1st of December 2012, in Malta.

‘Superman Spiderman or Batman’ tells the story of Aron, a 5-year old boy, who, together with his worried dad, one morning, leaves for the hospital, where he wishes, just like cartoon heroes, to save his mother from her heart disease.

The short was filmed exclusively in Cluj Napoca, in several locations from the neighborhoods of Gheorgheni, Grigorescu or Spitalul de Recuperare, with a local crew: actors Bogdan Zsolt, Cornel Răileanu, Elena Ivanca, Ovidiu Crişan, Maria Seleş, Adriana Băilescu and the film’s hero, child actor Aaron Şerban.

Another short film presented at the 10^th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival, ‘Silent River’, directed by Anca Miruna Lăzărescu has been awarded Best Live Action Short Film at the 27^th edition of Warsaw International Film Festival (7-16 October). Earlier in October, the film won the prize for Best International Fiction Film at Sedicicorto International Film Festival in Forli, Italy (3-9 October).

The story of ‘Silent River’ takes place in 1986 in Romania.Two men, Gregor and Vali, plan to escape the regime, by crossing the Danube, swimming to the Serbian bank. To assure their success, Gregor has one rule: Vali must leave his wife at home.

Media and cinema education program EducaTIFF, part of the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), received, on Wednesday evening, the prize for Best Educational Project at the Education Awards Gala for 2011.

The EducaTIFF project began in 2009 at the 8^th edition of Transilvania International Film Festival aiming to revive the young audiences’ passion for cinema and to make the first steps towards a solid foundation of media educational programs. In these days, when everyone is constantly exposed to media communication, youth represent a vulnerable category. Films for children as well as for teenagers tend to address to an audience with high emotional and cultural needs.

Cinema education stimulates learning and critical perception, analysis and debates on emotions generated by films. Also, with the support of cinema education, youth may develop abilities in order to use film as a support in expressing their own creativity.

By creating EducaTIFF, TIFF takes upon the mission to create, from an early age, a specialized audience, joining its efforts with other European projects on the same topic.

EducaTIFF comprises film screenings based on an educational platform offered to schools in Cluj county, a mean for professors to come in contact with resources for developing lesson plans (training programs, conferences, post-screening  debates in cinema or/and in school). Films are scheduled according to different age groups and have a solid background of educational good practice.

Education Awards Gala is an annual project initiated by the Dinu Patriciu Foundation with the aim of identifying and rewarding good practices in the educational area – individuals, institutions and organisations which contribute to the development of Romanian school.

Superman, Spiderman or Batman, directed by Tudor Giurgiu, premiered within the Romanian Days at the 10th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival, won, on Saturday, the prize for Best European Short at the 56^th edition of Valladolid International Film Festival (22^nd – 29^th October).

The prize consists of 2,000 euro and in the inclusion of the film on the list of the 15 shorts that will compete at the European Film Awards 2012. Thus, Superman, Spiderman or Batman is the first Romanian film competing for the European Oscar, which will be awarded on the 1^st of December 2012, in Malta.

The 15 nominations for the European Film Awards are the winning shorts (during October 2011 – September 2012 period) from the most important film festivals in Europe, such as Ghent, Cork, Rotterdam, Berlin, Krakow, Vila do Conde, Bristol, etc.

Established in 1956, the Valladolid International Film Festival is one of the oldest and most prestigious in Europe, being appreciated for the high quality of the film selection, as well as for discovering many new talents.

In 2011, the shorts competition included 12 films, selected from over 400 registered short features. The jury was formed of producer Saad Chraibi (Morocco), Kirill Razlogov, the director of Moscow Film Festival, the Swedish actress Gorel Crona, the Indian director Sangeeta Datta and Spanish producer Luisa Matienzo.

Superman Spiderman or Batman tells the story of Aron, a 5-year old boy, who, together with his worried dad, one morning, leaves for the hospital, where he wishes, just like cartoon heroes, to save his mother from her heart disease.

The short was filmed exclusively in Cluj Napoca, in several locations from the neighborhoods of Gheorgheni, Grigorescu or Spitalul de Recuperare, with a local crew: actors Bogdan Zsolt, Cornel Răileanu, Elena Ivanca, Ovidiu Crişan, Maria Seleş, Adriana Băilescu and the film’s hero, child actor Aaron Şerban.

The script was written by Doru Lupeanu, also known for his script for the short Faţa galbenă care râde (The Yellow Smiley Face), directed by Constantin Popescu.

The Director of Photography is Adrian Silişteanu, a long term collaborator of director Adrian Sitaru, the editor of the film is Eugen Kelemen, the casting was carried out by Kokino (Levente Molnar), who also collaborated for Morgen, and the executive producer is Bogdan Crăciun. The post-production was completed in the Chainsaw Europe studios.

The short Superman Spiderman or Batman is a Libra Film Productions production, co-financed by Romanian National Center and Zenith Media and realized with the support of Digital Cube.

The film was premiered within the 10^th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival (3^rd – 12^th of June, Cluj Napoca). Also, the short was presented at the 8^th edition of the Anonimul International Film Festival (8^th – 14^th of August) and at the Warsaw Film Festival (7^th – 16^th of October).

Superman Spiderman or Batman will be screened during the 52^nd edition of the Thessaloniki Festival International Film, in the section Balkan Survey, but also during the London Romanian Film Festival.

Liviu Ciulei, film director, actor, scriptwriter, architect and professor, died on the 25^th October at the age of 88.

Born on the 7^th July 1923, Liviu Ciulei studied theater at the Music and Theater Royal Conservatory and later on Architecture. He made his debut as an actor in 1946 playing Puck in “Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Odeon Theater in Bucharest. Later, he joined the Bucharest Theater, now Bulandra Theater where he made his debut as a director in 1957 with “The Rainmaker” of Richard Nash.

Liviu Ciulei’s career includes more than 20 films, as director, actor or scriptwriter but also theatre plays as director or actor, all of them distinguished in Romania as well as abroad.

His filmography includes, along one of the titles that remained in the Romanian Cinema history “The forest of the hanged”, also “The Waves of the Danube” (1959) and “Eruption” his direction debut in 1957.

“The forest of the hanged” was awarded with the Prize for Direction in Cannes Film Festival.

“The Waves of the Danube”, the second feature of Liviu Ciulei tells the story of three men forced to travel on a barge loaded with weapons, on the Danube, in August 1944, through the water mines of the Germans The film is a love story and was rewarded with the Cristal Globe Prize at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in 1960.

Among the awards Liviu Ciulei received in his career we can mention the UNITER (Romanian Theater Union) award in 1996, UNITER Excellence Award in 2001 as well as the Excellence Award in Romanian Cinema in 2002.

His carrier comprised also the position of Artistic Director, for ten years at the “Bulandra” Theater in Bucharest but also at the “Tyrone Guthrie” Theater  in Minneapolis.

Liviu Ciulei, father of director Thomas Ciulei, taught theater at two prestigious universities, Columbia University and New York University nut he was also honorary member of the Architect’s Order.

Last year, at the ninth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival, director Liviu Ciulei was honored by presenting three of its movies in the “3X3” section. The movies screened were “The forst of the hanged”, “The Waves of the Danube” and “Eruption”. Liviu Ciulei was also rewarded by the Transilvania International Film Festival with the Excellence Prize.

Winner of the Special Jury Award at the 10th edition of Transilvania International Film Festival, “La vida util”, directed by Uruguayan director, Federico Veiroj, has been awarded “Arsenals” Grand Prix at the Arsenals International Film Festival in Riga (10^th – 18^th September 2011).

The film tells the story of Jorge who at the age of 45 still lives with his parents. He has been the film programmer and technical support at the cinémathèque for 25 years. Because attendance is down, the cinémathèque shuts down, leaving Jorge unemployed. With no other skill, for the first time he is forced to change his way of life in order to adapt to the new world he faces.

Volcano, directed by Runar Runarsson, awarded with the Best Directing Award (Ex-Aequo) at the 10th Transilvania International Film Festival, has won two awards at the Festival du nouveau cinéma 2011 in Montreal (12th – 23rd October). The film was awarded with the first prize (Louve d’Or ) and the Film Critics Association in Quebec (AQCC) Award.

Director’s Runar Runarsson feature was also honored last week with the Best Feature Film Award at the „Meeting Point” section, dedicated to first or second feature films, at the 56th edition of Valladolid International Film Festival (22nd – 29th October).

Volcano is a coming of age story of a 67 year old man. When Hannes retires from his job as a janitor begins the void that is the rest of his life. He is estranged from his family, hardly has any friends and the relationship with his wife has faded. Through drastic events, Hannes realises that he has to adjust his life in order to help someone he loves. Volcano is a love story about dealing with the choices of the past and the difficulties of the present in order to embrace the future.

Romanian Film Promotion continues the campaign of regaining the Romanian audiences after finalizing two important projects: TIFF Operation Kino (which took place in 13 cities in Romania, gathering approximately 25.000 viewers) and the White Night of Romanian Films (which took place in the same day in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iaşi and Timişoara, with more than 7500 participants).

After the success of its first edition, in 2010, Romanian Film Promotion brings back TIFF Cinematheque between 27^th October and 22^nd December in Cluj-Napoca and Sibiu.

Every Thursday night, Victoria Cinema in Cluj-Napoca will host some of the most representatives films screened in the 2011 edition of Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF). Interesting documentaries, overwhelming dramas as well as fascinating comedies are part of the Cinematheque program, aiming to gather a representative audience.

In Sibiu, on the other hand, film fans will enjoy the cinema surprises prepared by TIFF team. Beginning with 27^th October, every two weeks, on Thursday evening in Humanitas Bookstore they will be able to watch films that were screened in the past years at TIFF.

The screenings from the TIFF Caravan/Operation Kino 2011 gathered together an audience of 15.000 people from the beginning to the middle of the program, recalling a success of the films and of the program.

Romanian Film Promotion (APFR), the organizer of the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), continues their vast project, TIFF Film Caravan/Operation Kino, together with the Film Festivals in Sofia, Sarajevo and Istanbul, a project supported by the EU program, MEDIA Mundus.

The 3rd edition of the Caravan took place between the 12th of July – the 18th September 2011 and had 13 destinations: Porolissum, Zalău, Timişoara, Mediaş, Piteşti, Râmnicu Vâlcea, Braşov, Călăraşi, Turda, Oradea, Tulcea, Siret, Rădăuţi.

The TIFF Film Caravan is the main project of the film national campaign started by Romanian Film Promotion back in 2009, aiming to bring the Romanian audience back to the cinema, to offer to cinephiles special 2-3 days events screening films that have received awards during the past 2 years, successful films, the newest Romanian films, art films, as well as mainstream films, offering the public a unique festival atmosphere.

Among the films screened within the 3rd edition of the TIFF Caravan/Operation Kino were: Biutiful (2010, Mexico–Spain, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu), an impressive  drama that brings Javier Bardem back in the lime light, in a role that got him a series of nominations for the most important awards (Oscar, BAFTA, etc), as well as the Best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival 2010, I am love (Italy, 2009, directed by Luca Guadagnino), a film very well-received by critics all over the world, nominated for the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs 2011 for the Best foreign film, The Illusionist (France, 2009), directed by Sylvain Chomet, nominated for the Oscars and the Golden Globes 2011, for Best animation film.

Among the mainstream films that the audience enjoyed in the Caravan, especially during the open-air screenings, we had The Way Back (USA, 2010, directed by Peter Weir), where Dragoş Bucur stars alongside Ed Harris, Colin Farrell and Saoirse Ronan, in one of the most spectacular roles of his career; and 127 hours (USA-UK, 2010), directed by Danny Boyle, will keep the audience on the edge of their seats during the real life story of the remarkable adventure of mountaineer Aron Ralston (James Franco) struggling to save himself after a boulder fell, crushed and nailed his arm, in an isolated, deep crack in a Utah canyon. The film got no less that 6 nominations at the 2011 Academy Awards, among which Best film and Best actor in leading role.

A surprise for film lovers in the Caravan: the films from the partner countries from the Operation Kino project, as well as the films from the countries that are not part of the MEDIA program, two important sections in the program.

During the 2 successful editions of the TIFF Film Caravan, the audience proved to be extremely receptive to the APFR initiative.

The TIFF Film Caravan is part of the Operation Kino regional project, a project initiated by the Romanian Film Promotion together with 4 other partners in the Balkan area: the Sarajevo Film Festival (Bosnia & Herzegovina), the Sofia Film Festival (Bulgaria),  Istanbul Film Festival (Turkey), and Reelport, one of the main players on the European digital film market. By involving Reelport in the project, part of the Operation Kino schedule will be available online for potential film buyers, as well as for important film festivals the world over.

The project, in its current form, is implemented for the second time in a row in all 4 territories, being co-financed by the Union European program MEDIA Mundus.

The main objective of the MEDIA Mundus program is to encourage the exchange and circulation of audio-visual works originating from the MEDIA program member states, as well as from third party countries (which are not part of this program).

Members of the Icelandic Film & TV Academy voted for Runar Runarsson’s film Volcano as the Icelandic submission to the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film.

 
Runar Runarsson was awarded with the Best Directing Award for his movie Volcano at the 10^th edition of Transilvania International Film Festival (3-12 June, 2011)

Volcano is a coming of age story of a 67 year old man. When Hannes retires from his job as a janitor begins the void that is the rest of his life. He is estranged from his family, hardly has any friends and the relationship with his wife has faded. Through drastic events, Hannes realises that he has to adjust his life in order to help someone he loves. Volcano is a love story about dealing with the choices of the past and the difficulties of the present in order to embrace the future. was nominated for his short film The Last Farm.

Marian Crisan's debut feature film Morgen has been selected as the Romanian candidate for the Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

Morgen (dir. Marian Crişan) received the Romanian Days Award For Feature Film, offered by the Romanian Cultural Institute, during Transilvania International Film Festival 2011.

Morgen is the story of Nelu, who works as a security guard in the local supermarket of a small town on the Romanian-Hungarian border. For Nelu, days go by the same: fishing at dawn, then work, and finally home with his wife. They live alone in an isolated farmhouse on the fields outside the town. Their problem these days is repairing the old roof of the farmhouse. One morning, Nelu will “fish” something different out of the river: a Turkish man trying to cross the border. The Turk gives Nelu all his money to help him cross the border. Nelu takes the money and promises he will help him cross the border the next day... Morgen...

The cast includes actors like Andras Hathazi, Yilmaz Yalcin, Elvira Rîmbu, Dorin C. Zachei, Molnar Levente

The film is a Romanian-French-Hungarian coproduction from Anca Puiu and Mandragora (www.mandragora.ro), Marianne Slot and Slot Machine (www.slotmachine.fr), and Ivan Angelusz and Peter Reich for Katapult Film (www.katapultfilm.hu).

Romanian Film Promotion, member of European Film Promotion since 2006, nominates actress Ana Ularu - the main character from Outbound (directed by Bogdan George Apetri), presented at Transilvania International Film Festival 2011 - to take part in the 2012 Shooting Stars Program, which will be opened during the coming edition of the Berlin International Film Festival.

The best-known and successful program of European Film Promotion, Shooting Stars is meant to highlight the careers & personalities of 10 of Europe's best young actors. Maria Popistaşu, Anamaria Marinca and Dragoş Bucur the Romanian actors who were selected to take part in the Shooting Stars so far.

The EFP member countries initially nominate the actors and actresses selected in the program, the final selection being carried out by an international jury. The 10 Shooting Stars benefit from a program with a high international visibility, as they will be introduced to a series of agents and film producers. The program takes place annually within the Berlin International Film Festival.

This initiative was established in 1998 with the intention to encourage a European star-system, an essential instrument for promoting and marketing the European cinematography. Between 1998 and 2011, the European Film Promotion launched a number of 233 de actors within this program.

Romania was represented, as a result of the nominalizations made by Romanian Film Promotion, by the following actors: Maria Popistaşu (2007), Anamaria Marinca (2008) and Dragoş Bucur (2010).

On the other hand, the Romanian producer Ada Solomon will be one of the jury members for the Shooting Stars 2012 Program that is taking place during the Berlin International Film Festival 2012.

Alongside Ada Solomon, Matt Mueller, journalist from UK, and Simone Bär, casting director from Germany, composes the Shooting Stars 2012 jury.

The second edition of the White Night of the Romanian Films event, organized by the Romanian Film Promotion association, was extraordinarily successful, public-wise. On the evening of September 16, 2011, in Bucharest, Cluj Napoca, Iasi and Timisoara, 7,500 people chose to spend the night together with the best local productions.

The hit of the White Night of the Romanian Film was certainly Hello! How Are You? (Buna! Ce faci?, directed by Alexandru Maftei), which managed to gather, at the New Cinema Hall of the Romanian Director in Bucharest and at the Florin Piersic Cinema in Cluj Napoca almost 1,000 viewers. The two venues also screened Florin Serban’s debut feature If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle (Eu cand vreau să fluier, fluier), that gathered over 500 viewers.

The viewers preferred the new venues of the White Night of the Romanian Films. The documentaries shown during the event at the Manuc Inn – Our School (Scoala noastra, directed by Mona Nicoara and Miruna Coca-Cozma), Metrobranding (directed by Ana Vlad and Adi Voicu) and 24 buckets, 7 mice, 18 years (24 de găleţi, 7 şoareci, 18 ani, directed by Marius Iacob) – gathered 450 viewers, while the Old Town location, where the feature California Dreamin’ (directed by Cristian Nemescu) was screened, there were over 480 viewers.

The Green Hours terrace gathered for the animations and the feature The Rest is Silence (Restul e tacere, directed by Nae Caranfil) around 500 viewers, while the shorts at Fabrica Venue were screened for over 300 people.

At Cluj Napoca, Florin Piersic Cinema and Victoria Cinema gathered over 1,300 viewers, Republica Cinema from Iasi - 850 viewers and Studio Cinema from Timisoara - 735 viewers.

The Second Edition of “The White Night of Romanian Films” will take place on the 16^th of September.

After a successful first edition in 2010, when approx. 7000 people attended the screenings, the organizers decided to extend the event to three more cities, beside Bucharest. Therefore, this year, “The White Night of Romanian Film” will take place in Bucharest, Iasi, Cluj-Napoca and Timisoara, on the same night.

The event aims to offer the audience the possibility to spend one night viewing Romanian films of all genres, created by Romanian cinematographers of all ages.

In Bucharest there will be 9 screening locations, in Cluj-Napoca two as Iasi and Timisoara will have one screening location each.

The program will contain films like Aurora (d. Cristi Puiu), The Bear (d. Dan Chisu), Morgen (d. Marian Crişan), If I want to whistle, I whistle (d. Florin Şerban), First of all, Felicia (d. Răzvan Rădulescu, Melissa de Raaf) or California dreamin’(endless) (d. Cristian Nemescu) and The Concert (d. Radu Mihăileanu).

The screenings will also include a selection of the most original Romanian documentaries and short films of 2011 but also classical Romanian movies.

“The White Night of Romanian Films” is organized by the Romanian Film Promotion Association and supported by Romanian National Cinema Centre.

Of Snails and Men is inspired by true events and tells the story of the workers from a Romanian factory that want to donate their sperm in order to obtain funds to save their factory from being privatized.

The script is written by Ionut Teianu, while Vivi Dragan Vasile signs the image of the movie.

The cast includes Romanian actors Andi Vasluianu, Monica Birladeanu, Dorel Visan, Valeria Seciu, Ion Besoiu and the French actors Jean François Stevenin şi Robinson Stevenin.

The Romanian company Libra Film Productions in partnership with French company Agat Films produce Tudor Giurgiu’s second feature. Tudor Giurgiu, Oana Giurgiu and Patrick Sobelman are the producers.

The budget for the production is 1.2 million Euros. The feature is financed by National Film Center, Eurimages, the MEDIA Programme of the European Unionon, Romanian National Television and HBO Romania. Also, the script was awarded  with a development grant  by the South Eastern Cinema Network (SEE Cinema Network).

Giurgiu’s first feature, Love Sick, was launched in 2006 and premiered at Berlin International Film Festival in Panorama section.

This year’s national focus of Reykjavik International Film Festival will be on Romania, with a special category of recent Romanian films presented within the RIFF 2011 screening programme, in partnership with Romanian Cultural Institute London.

A series of Romanian films already awarded or selected in the official competition of different prestigious film festivals will be screened, among which „The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu” (d. Andrei Ujică), „Outbound” (d. Bogdan George Apetri), „Loverboy” (d. Catalin Mitulescu), „Crulic” (d. Anca Damian) and „Tuesday, After Christmas” (d. Radu Muntean).

Director Adrian Sitaru will also be prezent along with two feature films, his latest „Best Intentions” (awarded at the Locarno International Film Festival with the Silver Leopard  for best director and best actor, Bogdan Dumitrache) and 2008’s „Hooked” but also with three award-winning shorts: „The Cage” (2010), „Lord” (2009) and „Waves” (2007).

In this year’s jury for New Visions, RIFF’s competition category, we will find Tudor Giurgiu, president of the Transilvania International Film festival.

Along with the screenings of the Romanian films, this edition of RIFF will also comprise a photo exhibition of Romanian photographer Alex Gȃlmeanu, „Subjective portraits” featuring Romanian actors and filmmakers but also a special party where DJ Nico de Transilvania will be resonsible for entertaining the festivals’ guests.

Romanian Film Promotion (APFR), the organizer of the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), continues their vast project, TIFF Film Caravan/Operation Kino, together with the Film Festivals in Sofia, Sarajevo and Istanbul, a project supported by the EU program, MEDIA Mundus.

The 3^rd edition of the Caravan will take place between the 12^th of July – the 18^th September 2011 and it will have 13 destinations: Porolissum, Zalău, Timişoara, Mediaş, Piteşti, Râmnicu Vâlcea, Braşov, Călăraşi, Turda, Oradea, Tulcea, Siret, Rădăuţi.

The TIFF Film Caravan is the main project of the national campaign started by APFR back in 2009, aiming to bring the Romanian audience back to the cinema, to offer to cinephiles special 2-3 days events screening films that have received awards during the past 2 years, successful films, the newest Romanian films, art films, as well as mainstream films, offering the public a unique festival atmosphere.

The TIFF Film Caravan 2011 starts in Sălaj County, on the 12^th of July, in a special location – the Porolissum Archeological Complex, a huge open-air museum and one of Sălaj’s landmarks as a local, regional and even European tourist highlight. At 21:30, in the Roman Amphitheatre, the special screening of Morgen (2010, directed by Marian Crişan), which received the Best Feature award at the Romanian Film Days, at the 10^th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival (3-12.06.2011, Cluj-Napoca).

The TIFF Caravan in Sălaj will continue on the 13^th of July, in Piaţa 1 Decembrie, in Zalău, with another Romanian film screening, Ursul (The Bear), the comedy of the year 2011, directed by Dan Chişu, the film with the most viewers at an open air screening at this year’s TIFF.

Among the films to be screened within the 3^rd edition of the TIFF Caravan/Operation Kino: Biutiful (2010, Mexico–Spain, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu), an impressive  drama that brings Javier Bardem back in the lime light, in a role that got him a series of nominations for the most important awards (Oscar, BAFTA, etc), as well as the Best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival 2010, I am love (Italy, 2009, directed by Luca Guadagnino), a film very well-received by critics all over the world, nominated for the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs 2011 for the Best foreign film, The Illusionist (France, 2009), directed by Sylvain Chomet, nominated for the Oscars and the Golden Globes 2011, for Best animation film.

Among the mainstream films that the cinephiles will enjoy in the Caravan, especially during the open-air screenings, we have The Way Back (USA, 2010, directed by Peter Weir), where Dragoş Bucur stars alongside Ed Harris, Colin Farrell and Saoirse Ronan, in one of the most spectacular roles of his career. And 127 hours (USA-UK, 2010), directed by Danny Boyle, will keep the audience on the edge of their seats during the real life story of the remarkable adventure of mountaineer Aron Ralston (James Franco) struggling to save himself after a boulder fell, crushed and nailed his arm, in an isolated, deep crack in a Utah canyon. The film got no less that 6 nominations at the 2011 Academy Awards, among which Best film and Best actor in leading role.

A surprise for film lovers in the Caravan: the films from the partner countries from the Operation Kino project, as well as the films from the countries that are not part of the MEDIA program, two important sections in the program.

During the 2 successful editions of the TIFF Film Caravan, the audience proved to be extremely receptive to the APFR initiative. In 2010, over 15,000 people chose to enjoy the films presented by the Caravan.

The TIFF Film Caravan is part of the Operation Kino international project, a project initiated by the Romanian Film Promotion together with 4 other partners in the Balkans: the Sarajevo Film Festival (Bosnia & Herzegovina), the Sofia Film Festival (Bulgaria), respectively the Istanbul Film Festival (Turkey), and with Reelport, one of the main players on the European digital film market. By involving Reelport in the project, part of the Operation Kino schedule will be available online for potential film buyers, as well as for important film festivals the world over.

The project, in its current form, is implemented for the second time in a row in all 4 territories, being co-financed by the Union European program MEDIA Mundus.

The main objective of the MEDIA Mundus program is to encourage the exchange and circulation of audio-visual works originating from the MEDIA program member states, as well as from third party countries (which are not part of this program).

More details on the 2011 TIFF Caravan time table and the schedule from each city are available on www.tiff.ro.

In July, the Caravan will also reach Timişoara (15-17.07), Mediaş (20-22.07) and Piteşti (22-24.07).

Swedish actress Pernilla August came to TIFF this year to present her feature directorial debut Beyond (Svinalängorna) which premiered at Venice's International Critics' Week in 2010. Occupying the director's chair rather than appearing in front of the camera was not the result of any specific longing to direct, she says, “because I love my work as an actress. It's more a feeling of thinking: ‘Well, I have been using my left hand all my life, now it's time to see what the right hand can do.’ It's more of a challenge.“

In fact, the idea that she might one day direct „is something that has been growing within me more and more. On the first film I ever did when I was about 16 or 17, I remember the feeling when I finished and had to leave the set. I was so curious about all of the other people on the other side of the camera because they seemed to have so much fun. I wanted to be with them all of the time!“

“Then about seven years ago I did a short film – Time-bomb - and I remembered thinking: 'Yes, I'm on the right side!' I had the same feeling when I started working on Beyond.“

Initially, August was somewhat disconcerted about making this step into directing: “I asked myself: 'What should I do and say to the actors?' And then I decided that if I don't have anything to say, then don't say anything. Don't pretend for the sake of it.“

However, her many years of experience as an actress meant that she had a pretty clear idea of what the actors and actresses need. „It's so important to have a good atmosphere on set,“ she explains, „especially in this film where we had so many kids in the cast. I know from my own work as an actress that a warm atmosphere helps so much for you to open up, relax and perform well.“

Directing Beyond – which won prizes at the festivals in Venice, Sao Paulo and Hamburg, among others – has whet her appetite to continue directing although it doesn't mean that her acting profession would be put on hold.

“I want to direct more and also play because I love acting,“ she says, pointing out that the collaboration between John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands and the work of Ingmar Bergman have been sources of inspiration for her foray into directing.

Martin Blaney, for AperiTIFF

Over 220 films from 45 de ţări, screenings and special events (theatre performances, exhibitions, concerts, DVD and book launches) in over 30 venues in Cluj and outside of Cluj, 1228 accredited guests and press, foreign and Romanian, a team of 300 professionals from all over the country and from abroad, helped by 400 volunteers.

In terms of „audience”, there were 60,248 sold tickets, plus the 4,882 viewers at Mănăştur Open Air, the public at the free screenings at the National Art Museum Gallery and TIFF Meeting Point (1,554), but also the accredited guests of the festival, who had access to screenings based on a 0 value ticket. In conclusion, the total number of admissions to films and festival events can be apporximated at around 70,000, with a daily traffic between 20,000 and 25,000 people at the key venues of the festival (Unirii Square, Cinema Florin Piersic, TIFF Meeting Point, Odeon Cineplex – Polus Center, Mănăştur Open Air).

Between June 1-12, the official website, www.tiff.ro, had 112,542 visits from 110 countries and territories, 55% more than in 2010, with an average visit length of 5 minutes each, while the festival’s video platform, www.tifftv.ro - 10,000 visits, in its first year of existence. The festival’s Facebook page has over 17,400 likes, placing TIFF on the 3rd spot in the top of the most popular Romanian events on Facebook, at less than a year and a half since it joined the popular social network.

After ten packed and intense days during which Cluj-Napoca hosted event-screenings, theatre performances and concerts, exhibitions and launches, it’s time for the audience in Bucharest and Sibiu to enjoy the TIFF 2011 films and events.

In Bucharest, between June 15 – 24, the organizers have prepared the TIFF 2011 retrospective for the film lovers who weren’t able to go to Cluj. Cinema Studio, Cinema Scala, The New Cinema of the Romanian Director and Cinema Elvira Popescu are the venues screenings a selection of the films presented at the tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival.

The top titles that can be watched include Sin retorno / No Return, by Argentinian director Miguel Cohan, winner of the Transilvania Trophy and of the Best Screenplay Award at the festival’s tenth edition, Balade triste de trompeta / A Sad Trumpet Ballad, by Spanish filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia, winner of the Silver Lion for Best Directing and of the Osella for Best Screenplay at Venice Film Festival 2010, as well as winner of two Goya awards, (one of which for Best Special Effects), and Imperialists Are Still Alive! (dir. Zeina Durra), awarded at TIFF 2011 for Best Performance.

The Way Back (dir. Peter Weir), starring Dragoş Bucur, Alexandru Potocean and Colin Farell, Kill me Please by Olias Barco, winner of Marc Aurelio Award for Best Film at Rome Film Festival  2010 and King’s Road, by Valdís Óskarsdóttir, contender in the Official Competition of TIFF 2011 are some of the features that can also be viewed during the TIFF 2011 restrospective in Bucharest.

The tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival announced its winners, during the Closing Gala which took place on Saturday evening, June 11, at The National Theatre in Cluj-Napoca. A ceremony filled with surprises and touching moments, both for winners and for the more than 1,000 present guests and audience.

A special and charming moment set the Gala going. The President of the festival, Tudor Giurgiu, invited three guests on stage: the delegate of Berlin Film Festival for Central and Eastern Europe - Nikolaj Nikitin, the director of Warsaw Film Festival - Stefan Laudyn and the director of Sofia Film Festival, Stefan Kitanov, in order to reenact for the public the evening when the idea of an international film festival was being born, in the Varna Restaurant in Warsaw. Czech Stefan Uhrik, the fifth man present at the now famous meeting, got through the hall in Cluj by phone.

The happiest man of the evening was, undoubtedly, Argentinian filmmaker Miguel Cohan. This year, The Transilvania Trophy goes to Argentina. The jury, made up of Laurence Herszberg, Cedomir Kolar, Uberto Pasolini, Radu Muntean, and Vesela Kazakova, decided that the 15,000 Euro award, offered by The Romanian Cultural Institute, should go to No Return (dir. Miguel Cohan). The fifth members considered the debut feature of Miguel Cohan as the most accomplished film in the competition line-up, a discourse on ethics disguised as a high-quality detective story, which was shortlisted by the jury for almost every possible trophy. Corina Şuteu – director of the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York and the special guest of the tenth edition of the festival, actress Jacqueline Bisset, presented the Argentinian filmmaker with the most coveted trophy of the evening, after, only shortly before, he had received from jury member Radu Muntean, together with scriptwriter Ana Cohan, the Best Screenplay Award for the profoundly human dimension of its characters and the way in which the storytelling deftly succeeds in keeping the overall thriller-like tension, without falling in the dramaturgic traps of a film of this genre.

 The jury decided to present the Best Directing Award, offered by the National Film Centre, ex-aequo, to Constantin Popescu, for Principles of Life, and Rúnar Rúnarsson, for Volcano. Even if they directed two entirely different films, the two filmmakers exhibited precision in the way in which they directed their actors and an extremely inspired use of cinematographic language, was the motivation of the jury. The announcement elicited a burst of applause and stirring emotions for both winners.

The main surprise moment came when producer Uberto Pasolini, member of the Competition Jury, and Cornelia Popa presented the Best Cinematography Award, offered by Kodak Cinelabs Romania: Pasolini went on stage wearing the official football outfit of the tenth edition, cheered by the entire audience. The award went to Linda Wassberg, for the cinematography of She-Monkeys.

For an uncompromising, right and credible performance, the jury decided that this year the Best Performance Award, offered by Vitrina Advertising and presented by actresses Vesela Kazakova (Bulgaria) and Maria Dinulescu (Romania) went to Elodie Bouchez, for The Imperialists Are Still Alive!

The Special Jury Prize, offered by Vodafone, went to A Useful Life (dir. Federico Veiroj), a charming film, an elevated and meaningful homage paid to cinema.

The Serbian feature Tilva Roš, by Nikola Ležaić, was overwhelmingly liked by film critics, winning the FIPRESCI Award because of its honest depiction of wasted youth. The jury added: without as much of telling a story, the movie is a slice of life which has universal appeal and it's done with so much innocence that it has really conquered our hearts.

A series of memorable moments took place during the Closing Gala of the anniversary edition of TIFF.

Marin Karmitz, legendary French producer born in Romania, founder of the production, distribution and exhibition company MK2 and producer Oleg Mutu were the recipients of the Special Award of the 10th Transilvania IFF.

The festival also paid homage to Lucian Pintilie, one of the forerunners of Romanian cinema, through a complete retrospective, but also through an Excellency Award offered by Mercedes-Benz and presented by film director Corneliu Porumboiu and Mihai Chirilov, the festival’s Artistic Director.

Jacqueline Bisset, the guest of honor of the tenth edition, came on stage both to offer the Transilvania Trophy and to receive the Special TIFF 2011 Award For The Contribution To The World Cinema.

British actor Michael York, recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award Offered To An Outstanding Personality Of The European Cinema, thanked the organizers for this honor. Through a video recording, he expressed his regret for not being able to attend the event in Cluj, due to health reasons.

Romanian actor George Motoi also went on stage to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, offered by Banca Transilvania, rewarding an impressive career, straight from Dorel Vișan’s hands.

Morgen (dir. Marian Crişan) received the Romanian Days Award For Feature Film, offered by the Romanian Cultural Institute, while the Romanian Days Award For Best Short Film, offered by L’Oreal, was presented to Bora Bora (dir. Bogdan Mirică). Bogdan George Apetri, director of Outbound, received the Romanian Days Award For Best Debut, offered by Ursus.

The festival’s anniversary edition meant a genuine cultural feast, which didn’t lack event-screenings, national, international and world premieres, workshops, masterclasses, meetings and debates, held by important guests from film industry, music and theatre performances, exhibitions, DVD and book launches. 

TIFF 2011 ends on Sunday, June 12. The screening that officially marks the end of the tenth edition is Life in a day (r. Kevin Macdonald).

Romanian-based film lovers have the chance to watch for free, on Mubi.com, until Monday, June 13, a 3.00 a.m., three of the films awarded during the Closing Gala of the tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival.

Thus, the winner of the Jury Special Award, A Useful Life (dir. Federico Veiroj); the film that brought Rúnar Rúnarsson the award for Best Directing, Volcano; the feature for which Linda Wassberg received the Best Cinematography Award, She-Monkeys, are the titles which can be watched for free by up to 300 viewers, exclusively on Romanian territory.

In addition to these three, the much talked about film in this year’s Official Competition, the Indian feature The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project (dir. Srinivas Sunderrajan) can also be watched for free on Mubi.com until Monday, June 13, a 3.00 a.m.

Jacqueline Bisset, recipient of the Special Award for Contribution to World Cinema, will attend, on Saturday, June 11, at 6.00 p.m., at Florin Piersic Cinema, the screening of Claude Chabrol’s film La Cérémonie / The Ceremony (France-Germany, 1995), nominated at the César Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role category.

During the Closing Gala, scheduled on the same day, at 8.30 p.m., at the National Theatre in Cluj-Napoca, Jacqueline Bisset will be the focus of a special moment, dedicated to the handing over of her trophy.

Jacqueline Bisset, guest of honor of Transilvania International Film Festival, landed in Cluj-Napoca Wednesday, June 8, being welcomed by actresses Monica Bîrlădeanu and Ozana Oancea. Since then, she has attended various special events, alongside the public and festival guests, and has held a press conference and a Q&A session. One of the most important screenings she attended was The Oak, on Thursday, June 9, at 6.00 p.m. With this occasion, Jacqueline Bisset met film director Lucian Pintilie and the main actress of the Cannes award-winning film, Maia Morgenstern.

Born on September 13, 1944, in Weybridge, Great Britain, Jacqueline Bisset has had an impressive career, which includes over 80 parts in cinema and TV productions. Star of the silver screen starting the 60s, Jacqueline Bisset has quickly risen to fame, managing to gain both the critics’ and the audience’s appraisal, owing to her roles full of character and charm.

She started in Cul-de-sac, by Roman Polanski, with Donald Pleasence playing the main part. She was then distributed in Two for the Road (1967), alongside Audrey Hepburn, and her first important role was in The Cape Town Affair, in 1967, alongside James Brolin.

The part that made her famous is that of Steve McQueen’s lover in the action movie Bullitt, in 1968. The next year brought her the first Golden Globes nomination, in the Most Promising Newcomer – Female category, for her performance in The Sweet Ride. Jacqueline Bisset was one of the big names in the comedy Airport (d. George Seaton), nominated for 9 categories at the Academy Awards in 1971, among which the one for Best Film. She became known on the European scene in 1973, when François Truffaut’s Day for Night came out, the film that brought her a well-deserved place among the most important actors of the time.

She established her fame in the US with The Deep (1977), with Robert Shaw and Nick Nolte, film which made Newsweek declare her „the most beautiful actress of all time”. She was again nominated at the Golden Globes for the comedy Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?, in 1978, and soon after that she played in Rich and Famous, alongside Candace Bergen. In 1984, the part in Under the Volcano brought her a new nomination at the Golden Globes.

She played alongside some of the most important actors of the last decades. Her name toped the bill for films such as The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean and When Time Ran Out, with Paul Newman. Albert Finney, Mickey Rourke, Anthony Perkins and Michael York starred in films together with her. She worked with directors such as François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, John Huston, Stanley Donen, Sidney Lumet or George Cukor.

In 2000, Jacqueline Bisset was again nominated for the Golden globes, for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the TV mini-series Joan of Arc. For the same role, she received a nomination at the prestigious Emmy Awards (1999). Her most recent films also include The Last Film Festival (d. Linda Yellen), the last film in Dennis Hopper’s career.

The tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival will pay homage to one of the most outstanding and well-known Romanian film & theatre actors from the last half century, George Motoi, who will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, given to a personality from Romanian cinema.

Actorul va fi prezent la proiecţia filmului Întoarcerea lui Vodă Lăpuşneanu (regia Malvina Urşianu) la Cinema Arta, ora 15.00.

Born on January 22, 1936, at Arman (Caliacra, now Bulgaria), George Motoi graduated the Film & Drama Institute in Bucharest. He is one the most prized Romanian artists, which a career that spans over almost 50 years, during which he played in countless theatre plays, films and TV productions. Throughout the years, George Motoi has also become known as a theatre director.

He made his debut in film in 1962, with Lupeni '29, directed by Mircea Drăgan. Important parts followed, such as: Magellan’s Return (d. Cristiana Nicolae), July Light (d. Gh. Naghi), Evening (d. Malvina Urşianu), Fleeting Loves (d. Malvina Urşianu), The Jderi Brothers (d. Mircea Drăgan), For Your Country (d. Sergiu Nicolaescu), The Inquiry (d. Constantin Vaeni), The Silence of the Deep (d. Malvina Urşianu), The Silver Mask, (r. Gh. Vitanidis), The Turquiose Necklace, (d. Gh.Vitanidis), Pacific Storm (d. Nicu Stan).

In 1985 he played an exceptional part in Mircea Veroiu’s Adela, for which he was awarded the Grand Prize at San Remo Film Festival.

One of the most important performances of his career remains that of ruler Alexandru Lăpuşneanu in The Return of the Banished, by Malvina Urşianu. The film presents the second rule of the king, returned on the Moldavian throne in 1564, after an exile imposed by influent noblemen. Lăpușeanu was the most important role I played in cinema. Parts like this one appear only two or three times in an actor’s career, favored only by the cyclical chance, I would call it, of the appearance of exceptional works, said Motoi in his essay book, Under the Actor’s Mask, published in 1989.

His filmography includes working with some of the most important directors of his generation, such as Sergiu Nicolaescu, Mircea Drăgan, Elisabeta Bostan, Mircea Moldovan, Gheorghe Vitanidis and Malvina Urşianu.

His theatre debut took place at the State Theatre in Piatra Neamț, in 1958, with Love Story by Konstantin Simonov, directed by Cristian Munteanu. He later on played on various important stages, such as the ones in Bacău, Cluj and ultimately Bucharest.

His artistic activity was rewarded with several honors: the ACIN Award for Best Male Performance for Andrei in Fleeting Loves, by Malvina Urșianu, The Excellency Award granted by CNC for Special Contribution to Romanian Cinema, and, in theatre, The National Theatre Festival Award for Victor in Cat on New Year’s Eve, by D.R.Popescu, directed by Vlad Mugur are a few of them.

At the tenth edition of TIFF, the audience is invited to test the most thrilling experience: the Shadows Shorts section, dedicated to horror & fantasy films. Programmer Mihai Mitrică, director of the Anim’est International Animation Film Festival, has revealed some of the reasons that make this year’s Shadows Shorts films one the highlights of the festival.

This year’s Shadows Shorts line-up puts together twelve very distinct films. We won’t enjoy only bloody horrors with zombies and monsters, we will also take pleasure in animation films (3 titles), mood films, strange and novel films that don’t keep to any cinema rules, besides the ones related to the impeccable design, from every point of view. From a stylistic point of view, they have one single thing in common: the dark, sinister, ominous mood. There is no sun in Shadows Shorts!

An absolute must-see of the section is Night Fishing, directed by cult-director Park Chan Wook, together with his brother – Park Chan-Kyong, winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. The film was shot entirely on IPhone4, one more reason that makes this film not-to-be-missed. Co-director Park Chan-Kyong will personally attend the screenings in Cluj-Napoca.

The Shadows Shorts line-up is completed by Dennison Ramalho’s Ninjas, selected in the Official Competition at Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival, All Flowers in time, by Jonathan Caouette, author of Tarnation and member of Gus van Sant’s post-production team, with whom he worked with on several movies, but also the person behind the special effects in Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg’s famous film, Through the night, by Lee Cronin, nominated for the BAFTAs 2010 for Best Short Film, animated films Danny Boy, by Marek Skrobecki, Martyris, directed by Luis Felipe Hernandez Alanis, and Innercity by Alain Fournier.

One of the special guests of the tenth edition of TIFF is the Romanian-born producer, Marin Karmitz. Distinguished with the Special Award of the 10th Transilvania IFF, Karmitz will attend the screening of Copie conforme / Certified Copy, directed by Abbas Kiarostami, starring Juliette Binoche, William Shimell, Jean-Claude Carrière, Agathe Natanson. Present in the Official Selection of Cannes Film Festival, Certified Copy brought Binoche the Best Actress award on the Croisette.

On Saturday, June 11, at 12.00, at TIFF Lounge – Unirii Square, Marin Karmitz will hold a masterclass during which he will share some of the secrets behind film production.

In addition to Certified Copy, another film in the TIFF Programme produced by Marin Karmitz is La Cérémonie / The Ceremony, directed by Claude Chabrol, which brought actresses Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Bonnaire the Coppa Volpi Trophy at Venice Film Festival in 1995 and a nomination at the César Awards, for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Jacqueline Bisset. The Ceremony will be screened at TIFF on Saturday, June 11, at 6.00 p.m., at Florin Piersic Cinema, in honour of actress Jacqueline Bisset – recipient of the Special Award for the Contribution to the World Cinema.

Marin Karmitz was born in Bucharest, Romania, on the 7th of October 1938, but a few years later his family left the country to avoid the oppressions inflicted on the Jew communities. Living in Paris, he graduated from the famous film school IDHEC, better known today as La Fémis.

In 1967 he founded the production company MK2, initially specialized in short films. Confronted with distribution shortcomings, he decided to screen his own productions and thus opened his own cinema in Paris, on the 1^st of May 1974.

Marin Karmitz has produced and co-produced approximately 100 films, distributed more than 300 and created a circuit of ten multiplexes in Paris, the third most important in the city, with approximately 60 screens and an audience of over five millions people per year.

MK2 is rated today among the four most important cinema groups in France, and is present in many audio-video fields. Its catalogue contains more than 400 titles, among which there are films directed by Charlie Chaplin, François Truffaut, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Claude Chabrol, Abbas Kiarostami, Gus Van Sant, and Romanian Lucian Pintilie.

19 films produced by MK2 received awards in Cannes, three of them even grabbing the craved Palme d’Or. Martin Karmitz’s productions received multiple awards at festivals all over the world, including the prestigious Venice and Berlin festivals, or Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. In 1966, Martin received an Oscar nomination himself, for the short documentary Adolescence, -directed with Vladimir Forgency.

In 2005 he leaves his son Nathanaël in charge of MK2, and in 2009 is appointed general delegate of the Artistic Creation Council, founded by French president Nicolas Sarkozy in order to promote French culture around the world.

After an brilliant start, the second of the Romanian Days brings a series of outstanding books and DVD launches.

The ten years of the Romanian New Wave will be celebrated at TIFF 2011 with the launch of an exceptional DVD box: New Romanian Cinema: The Beginnings. This includes 11 of the most important recent Romanian films, 11 spectacular debuts which have swept TIFF, and many other festivals: Morgen (dir. Marian Crişan), 12:08 East of Bucharest (dir. Corneliu Porumboiu), If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle (dir. Florin Şerban), The Happiest Girl in the World (dir. Radu Jude), Francesca (dir. Bobby Păunescu), Hooked (dir. Adrian Sitaru), First of all, Felicia (dir. Răzvan Rădulescu and Melissa de Raaf), Love Sick (dir. Tudor Giurgiu), Rage (dir. Radu Muntean), California dreamin’ (endless) (dir. Cristian Nemescu), How I Spent the End of the World (dir. Cătălin Mitulescu). The DVD box launch will take place at TIFF Meeting Point from 5.00 p.m.

The DVD collection New Romanian Cinema: The Beginnings was made by APFR (Romanian Film Promotion), financed by CNC (The National Film Center), with the support of ODS (Optical Disc Solution), Ex-Libris printing house and the distribution company Transilvania Film.

Also at TIFF Meeting Point, from 6:00 p.m., Stelian Tănase will launch his novel Moartea unui dansator de tango (The Death of a Tango Dancer).

At 4.30, TIFF Lounge will host the launch of two volumes signed by late film critic and festival friend and supporter, Alex. Leo Șerban: Alte camere, alte glasuri de ieri (Other rooms, other voices from yesterday) and Mica dietetică (The Small Dietetics).

The second day dedicated to Romanian cinema will bring at Florin Piersic Cinema two absolute premieres, which will ensure the presence of iconic guests at the tenth edition of the festival.

At 6.00 p.m., with the occasion of Lucian Georgescu’sdebut feature – The Phantom Father, the audience will have the pleasure to meet actors Marcel Iureş and Mihaela Sîrbu and writer Barry Gifford. The latter is returning to Cluj after he was one of the members of the Official Competition Jury in 2003. Lucian Georgescu’s film uses Gifford’s work, The Phantom Father, as a starting point, his collaboration with the writer being a very successful and close one.

American Professor Robert Traum takes a sabbatical and turns his back on a present without surprise, to live an adventure from the past. Back in the Old World, he researches the origins of his father and uncle, the famous Traum brothers: Rudolf, a famous novelist, and Samuel – once a notorious gangster in Chicago. While traveling through Transylvania and Bucovina Robert meets Tanya, a Government archivist. Together they find Sami, the last surviving family friend, a cinema projectionist who was chased out of his old movie theatre by a greedy local politician. While Robert helps Sami win his theatre, Sami gives Robert his identity back.

The much anticipated programme of masterclasses, workshops and debates with Romanian and international film professionals continues at the tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival.

On Friday, June 10, at 11.00 a.m., at TIFF Lounge, the director who opened the path of the Romanian New Wave, Cristi Puiu, will hold a Cinema Lesson with free access, dedicated to all film lovers. This year, Cristi Puiu returns in the Romanian Days’ spotlight with his debut feature, the film which marked the beginning of the Romanian film phenomenon: Stuff and Dough celebrates 10 years since its premiere.

On the same day, at TIFF Lounge, in Unirii Square, at 3.00 p.m., during a film debate with Iceland’s director Valdis Óskarsdóttir, present in the Official Competition of TIFF 2011 with King’ Road and winner of the Best Editing BAFTA award for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, will share with the audience the way in which you can successfully combine film directing and editing, but also things from her collaboration with renowned contemporary filmmakers, such as Gus van Sant, Thomas Vinterberg and Michel Gondry.

The renowned Romanian-born French producer, sales agent and distributor Marin Karmitz, founder of the production and distribution company MK2, recipient of a Special Award of the 10th Transilvania IFF, will hold an unmissable masterclass on June 11, 12.00, at TIFF Lounge. The producer of Certified Copy (d. Abbas Kiarostami) will also meet the public at the film’s special screening hosted by Victoria Cinema on June 10.

One of the surprises offered by tenth edition of TIFF is the presence in Cluj-Napoca of the most appreciated expert at this time in the fields of films distribution and marketing: Thomas Mai.

On June 10, Thomas Mai will hold an workshop on Crowdfunding, Social Media and Distribution 2.0.

Thus, both Romanian film professionals and foreign guests of the festival (producers, distributors, directors), active in the fields of Marketing, Public Relations, Sales, but also all those interested in how to promptly and efficiently promote a «product» by using the internet, have now the chance to discover the secrets of online social platforms. For 7 hours, based on an intensive work-plan, the participants of the workshop will be able to discover and understand the way in which social media can help in getting the financial support for a film production, as well as in distributing and selling films.

Thomas Mai is well-known for his extensive experience: he is a speaker and consultant for filmakers on financing, marketing, distribution and Social Media. In 2010 he was the keynote speaker at 19 workshops around the world. Thomas is a former sales agent for 14 years, having sold films by directors such as Lars von Trier, Lukas Moodysohn, Thomas Vinterberg and many more. He has produced 4 feature films THE EIGHTEENTH, POSSESSED, DON’SPLUM, and ONE POINT O (see IMDB.com), and won numerous awards. Thomas was Managing Partner and producer in Klondike Film from 1996-1998 and CEO of Trust Film Sales from 1998-2000. From 2000-2004 he was the Managing Partner and producer of ZentAmerica and CEO of Los Angeles based Katapult Film Sales from 2004-2006. From 2006-2009 Thomas was Head of New Business at TrustNordisk.

All those who want to apply for the workshop held by Thomas Mai in Cluj, on June 10, are asked to send their CV to workshops@tiff.ro.

10 years of the Romanian New Wave in the US and internationally will be the subject of a panel with international guests at the TIFF Lounge this afternoon (from 17.00-18.00). It will then be followed by the launch of the special edition of AperiTIFF – Romanian Cinema 2011, which is the second annual special magazine about contemporary Romanian cinema and has again been published by TIFF in collaboration with the Romanian Cultural Institute.

As TIFF artistic director Mihai Chirilov explains, the first special issue of AperiTIFF last year had focussed on Romanian cinema in 2010 „because it was an extremely rich year with three films in Cannes and plenty of other premieres. It was the year in the Romanian cinema.“

This second issue, though, is dominated by the number 10 as indicated from the start by the magazine's cover. One article is dedicated, for example, to the 10 key faces of Romanian cinema – ranging from Luminița Gheorghiu from The Death of Mr Lazarescu to Răzvan Vasilescu of California Dreamin' as well as such newer faces as Dorotea Petre and Maria Popistașu – while another feature returns to Cristi Puiu's Stuff and Dough 10 years after its release and juxtaposes a review of the film from today's perspective with one written 10 years ago as well as presenting testimonials from all of the key members involved in the film such as the actors, DoP, producers, scriptwriters and director Puiu.

The number 10 also figures in the section devoted to the Romanian director Lucian Pintilie who is the subject of the first complete retrospective (of course, with 10 films) ever to have been staged in his native country. „There are articles on his films from the Romanian and international perspective, a long interview with Pintilie and excerpts from his memoirs which have only appeared to date in Romanian and French, but deserve to be translated in English,“ Chirilov says.

Moreover, an extensive interview was conducted with cinematographer Oleg Mutu who is one of the recipients of the Special Award created on the occasion of the festival's 10^th anniversary. „He was the key DoP of two masterpieces of the new Romanian Cinema [The Death of Mr Lăzărescu and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days], and is the only Romanian DoP to have become involved in international productions such as My Joy and Innocent Saturday,“ Chirilov explains.

Last but not least, the special edition looks back at 10 editions of TIFF and includes comments from past guests about how the festival has grown and developed over the years. Also thrown into the mix is a survey of the current state of Romanian cinema and reviews of new films showing at this year's Romanian Days as well as a DVD featuring a selection of brand-new Romanian shorts.

„The magazine is dedicated to Alex. Leo Șerban to whom we pay an emotional tribute with a professional and personal account of him both as a person and a man of cinema,“ Chirilov declares. „He is present in all of the relevant sections with a review of Stuff and Dough from 10 years ago, an overview of the Romanian cinema of 2010, and an unfinished essay on Pintilie which was the last piece he wrote.”

Martin Blaney, for AperiTIFF

Today sees the start of Romanian Days, which remains one of TIFF’s biggest attractions for the international guests, and, to judge from the packed theatres and intense response, for the local public too. Of the ten films selected from the prolific production of 2010-11, three are first films, and the rest, except for Sinisa Dragin’s IF THE SEED DOESN’T DIE, are from directors who have emerged in the ten years of “New Romanian Cinema” - whose history coincides, more or less, with TIFF itself.

The first real shot, internationally speaking, was fired by Cristi Puiu, with STUFF AND DOUGH (2001) - a film completed against all odds: the budget somehow ‘disappeared’ and it was finished in total penury. Its FIPRESCI prize at the Thessaloniki Festival was the first formal international recognition of the emergent Romanian cinema (and I can’t refrain from boasting that I was part of that jury - all of us, I admit, in perfect ignorance as to what was to come). After that came THE DEATH OF MR LAZARESCU, 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS, CALIFORNIA DREAMING, THE PAPER WILL BE BLUE .... and all the rest of the miracle.

Now though, ten years on, at every press conference or party, the anxious debate is starting to get a shade tedious – is there still a New Romanian Cinema?  Where do we go from here?

It’s sure that ‘New’ is not for ever. The history of the cinema is full of miracles – Neo-Realism in the 40s, Nouvelle Vague and Britain’s Angry Young Men in the 50s, the Czech Spring in the 60s .... They could not stay new, and faded within a few years - but all left their indelible mark in terms of people and ideas. As Cédomir Kolar said at the Competition Jury’s press conference on Tuesday, where Romania is concerned, “the brand is established”. At every major festival, audiences and critics now seek out the latest Romanian film with a curiosity that didn’t exist a decade ago; and the curiosity will last.

These years have given Romanian film-makers a confidence that earlier generations certainly could not claim. There is a strong corpus of exceptional film-makers, internationally regarded, and with a real community among themselves.  They have fought to rationalise the national production situation; and in turn have given new confidence and prominence to their collaborators behind and before the cameras.

Is a strongly established cinema; but like every any other national cinema, the fundamental problem that is going to shape the future will always remain the choice and availability of subjects. Yesterday I quoted Uberto Pasolini: “The most important thing for any national cinema is to maintain contact with its own audience, its own people. Without the strength of its own public, a cinema withers”.

At one level that may be easier to say than to fulfil.  Except for the big successes like 4,3,2 and IF I WANT TO WHISTLE, I WILL WHISTLE, the Romanian audience (except for Cluj’s unique, faithful and excitingly excited public) has so far not offered the best market for the national product. But that inconvenience does not alter the main point. The riches of the Romanian cinema are its own national culture, society, temperament, daily problems.  The greatest directors –  Ozu and Satyajit Ray among them – taught us that the most universal subjects are most often to be found in the smallest and most local and familiar stories. And as you discover, talking to young Romanians inside and outside the country, there are endless of those fundamental stories still to tell.  New is not for ever – but that need not impair the potential for a 21^st century Romanian movie that stays authentically Romanian.

David Robinson, for AperiTIFF

One of the most anticipated sections at TIFF 2011 is the one dedicated to Romanian cinema.

For three days, film lovers will be able to enjoy the most recent Romanian film productions, screened for the first time ever in Romania, plus a series of masterclasses, panels and debates held by renowned film professionals. This year’s line-up, selected by Mihai Chirilov, the Artistic Director of the Festival, is made up of 12 feature films and 15 shorts.

Ten years after the birth of the Romanian New Wave, the public will be able to enjoy an utterly special screening, of a film considered a landmark of Romanian cinema, Stuff and Dough – Cristi Puiu’s debut. Cinema Florin Piersic will thus host the event-screening which will officially open the Romanian Days, on Thursday, June 9, at 9.30 p.m., in the presence of the director and cast. A young man who owns his own small business wishes to expand and buy a small boutique, but is without financial means. A local big shot offers him a large amount of money in exchange of an apparently simple task: the transport of a bag to a precise address in Bucharest. The problem is that the bag contains some items craved by other parties.

Actors Dragoș Bucur, Ioana Flora and Alexandru Papadopol star in the leading roles.

Cristi Puiu will meet the audience, press and festival guests during a Cinema Lesson he will hold on Friday, June 10, at 11.00 a.m., at TIFF Lounge – Unirii Square. For two hours, Cristi Puiu will fascinate the public, sharing stories and key-moments from his experience and from the three feature films he directed so far: Stuff and Dough (2001), The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005) and Aurora (2010), as well as from the short film Cigarettes and Coffee (2004) – winner of the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at Berlin Film Festival 2004.

The second day dedicated to Romanian cinema will bring at Florin Piersic Cinema two absolute premieres, which will ensure the presence of iconic guests at the tenth edition of the festival.

At 6.00 p.m., with the occasion of Lucian Georgescu’s debut feature – The Phantom Father, the audience will have the pleasure to meet actors Marcel Iureş and Mihaela Sîrbu and writer Barry Gifford. The latter is returning to Cluj after he was one of the members of the Official Competition Jury in 2003. Lucian Georgescu’s film uses Gifford’s work, The Phantom Father, as a starting point, his collaboration with the writer being a very successful and close one. American Professor Robert Traum takes a sabbatical and turns his back on a present without surprise, to live an adventure from the past. Back in the Old World, he researches the origins of his father and uncle, the famous Traum brothers: Rudolf, a famous novelist, and Samuel – once a notorious gangster in Chicago. While traveling through Transylvania and Bucovina Robert meets Tanya, a Government archivist. Together they find Sami, the last surviving family friend, a cinema projectionist who was chased out of his old movie theatre by a greedy local politician. While Robert helps Sami win his theatre, Sami gives Robert his identity back.

Starting at 8.30 p.m., Cinema Florin Piersic will host another anticipated premiere – Loverboy, the second feature directed by Cătălin Mitulescu, starring Ada Condeescu and George Piştereanu, protagonists of 2010 festival and box-office hit, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle (dir. Florin Șerban).

After its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival, within the Un Certain Regard section, Loverboy comes directly to Cluj, bringing the entire cast and crew in front of the public.

Luca (20) seduces girls and then leaves them in the hands of his friends at the Black Sea port Constanta. But when he meets the beautiful and exuberant Veli, Luca falls in love... It's summer down the Danube river. The music is loud, the cars are fancy, the girls are tanned and Veli runs away from home to Luca's bed. First love has never felt more dangerous.

This year, the Romanian Days are under the auspices of film director Lucian Pintilie. His full body of work will be screened within a complete retrospective, the new 100% section. TIFF 2011 will pay homage to Lucian Pintilie by conferring him the Excellency Award, offered by Mercedes-Benz, which will be presented to him during TIFF’s Closing Gala.

Throughout his film career, Lucian Pintilie distinguished himself through his daring, sarcastic style, having an extremely critical perspective on the world, his works often stirring controversy or completely taking over both critics and audience. Lucian Pintilie is justly considered one of the major sources of inspiration for Romanian New Wave filmmakers.

The renowned director will be present at three screenings of his films, offering a genuine cinema lesson to the lovers of the seventh art. Thus, the audience will be able to meet Pintilie on Thursday, June 9, at 6.15 p.m. at Florin Piersic Cinema, for the screening of The Oak, on Friday, June 10, at 6.00 p.m. at Arta Cinema for the screening of Niki and Flo, and on Saturday, June 11, at 6.00 p.m. at Cinema Arta, for the screening of the The Afternoon of a Torturer.

The seventh day of the festival, Thursday, June 9, brings a series of launches that will attract both the public and the festival guests.

At 5.00 p.m., for one hour, at the TIFF Lounge in Unirii Square, TIFF and the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York will organize a round table on 10 YEARS of the Romanian New Wave in the U.S. and internationally. The panel moderated by Corina Şuteu – ICRNY director, will be attended by guests such as Laurence Kardish (Curator for film and cinema at MoMA), David Kwok (Director of Programming al Tribeca Film Festival in New York), Basil Tsiokos (programmer at Sundance Film Festival and film critic at Indiewire) and Margaret von Schiller (Mingus Films).

The debate will focus on the international reaction to the sweeping success of Romanian cinema during the last decade and on analyzing the motives behind the keen interest expressed by critics, programmers and international distributors towards Romanian cinema. The debate will also touch the larger context of contemporary film industry.

During this round table, the 2^nd  issue of the special, English-language magazine AperiTIFF 2011 will be launched, magazine which offers an ample analysis on the Romanian cinema phenomenon during the past 10 years. The publication, produced with the support of the Romanian Cultural Institute and ICR New York, was coordinated by Mihai Chirilov, Artistic Director of Transilvania Film Festival.

From 1.00 p.m., the TIFF Lounge in Piaţa Unirii will also host the DVD launch of Morgen (dir. Marian Crişan). A funny, simple and charming film, screened within the Romanian Days at TIFF 2011, Morgen was nominated for 11 Gopo Film Awards and won 3 important awards both at Locarno and Thessaloniki Film Festival.

Another DVD launch will take place at TIFF Meeting Point, from 4.30: The World According to Ion B. (dir. Alexandru Nanau) – one of the most successful recent Romanian documentaries, produced by HBO Central Europe and Alexander Nanau Production. The only Romanian film so far to win an Emmy International award (in the Arts Programming category), the film directed by Alexander Nanau tells the incredible story of Ion Bârlădeanu, who became over-night, from a homeless in Bucharest, a worldwide recognized artist.

By now, one of the Transilvania International Film Festival traditions, on Thursday, June 9, 2011, HBO Day brings to public attention two original productions signed HBO Films: You Don't Know Jack (d. Barry Levinson), at 3.30 p.m. at Florin Piersic Cinema and The Special Relationship (d. Richard Loncraine) at 10.00 p.m. at the French Cultural Institute.

You Don't Know Jack is a biopic about Jack Kevorkian (Al Pacino), the doctor who shocked the entire world by openly provoking the right to die debate. He launches his crusade to provide what he considers to be a humane and dignified option for the terminally ill - assisted suicide. Kevorkian begins offering his "death counseling" services to a grateful and burgeoning clientele, which brings him in the attention of the county prosecutor's office. Provocative, obstinate and complex, Jack ultimately risks it all in his fervor to change the prevailing laws and challenge society's attitude towards the right to die.

Another must-see HBO Day feature is The Special Relationship. In 1992, Labour leader Tony Blair goes to America and is impressed by the policies of President Clinton, which he uses to reshape his party. Two years later he sees Clinton again and the president predicts that he will be Britain's next Prime Minister. Thus begins the 'special relationship' between the two, which will start to sour a few years later. The cast is made up of big names from international cinema, like Dennis Quaid, Michael Sheen and Adam Godley.

The access for the two HBO productions is free, but viewers are required to pick up a zero value ticket from any TIFF ticketing point.

In addition to the two extraordinary screenigs, HBO has set in store a surprise for the audience in Cluj: the documentary The World According to Ion B., directed by Alexander Nanau, will be launched on DVD at TIFF Meeting Point, at 4.30. p.m. Produced by  HBO Romania and Alexander Nanau Productions, the film follows, for one year, the life Ion Barladeanu, an anonymous tramp on the streets of Bucharest, who becomes an important and popular contemporary artist. The documentary was broadcasted for the first time on HBO on December 17, 2009, won the Art Programming category at the 38^th edition of the Emmy International Awards, received the 2010 Gopo Award for Best Documentary and has been to over 30 film festivals so far, where it won several awards.

The DVD, featuring the documentary, trailers and a photo gallery, will by distributed by Independenţa Film and it will be available for sale in Cărtureşti and Humanitas bookstores, as well as on www.mediacentrix.ro.

On June 11, the winners of the National Screenwriting Competition organized by HBO Romania in partnership with Transilvania IFF will be announced during the Closing Ceremony of the tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival. This year, there were 106 submissions for feature film category, 195 for short film and 15 for documentary.

At Transilvania IFF, HBO Romania presents the No limit and What’s Up, Doc? sections. HBO presence at TIFF is complemented by Cinemax, who offers the 3x3 section.

On June 9, the Romanian Days bring to TIFF 2011, in addition to local premieres, debates and launches, a series of practical workshops and seminars dedicated both to film professionals and to those interested in learning various firsthand aspects about the seventh art.

At 11.00 a.m., TIFF Lounge will host a workshop presented by SONY: Introduction in Sony’s 35mm World. Those interested will take part in a presentation on Super 35-mm digital production, introducing PMW-F3 and NXCAM NEX-FS100E Super 35mm camcorders.

From 12.00 p.m., also at TIFF Lounge (Unirii Square), MEDIA Desk Romania invites independent producers and audio-visual professionals to the MEDIA funding schemes for European producers. Focus on Romania & Hungary seminar, dedicated to funding possibilities offered by the MEDIA Programme (2007 – 2013) of the European Union. The seminar will be presented by Valentina Miu, Head of MEDIA Desk Romania. Enikő Kiss, MEDIA Desk Hungary coordinator, will also take the floor and present the funding oportunities offered by the MEDIA Programme and the results achieved by Hungarian producers with the help of MEDIA funding schemes, in the „Development funding for projects” category.

From 3.00 p.m., the Conference Hall of the Cluj branch of the Romanian National Bank will host a debate on Regional cooperation for postproduction, distribution and exhibition of feature films. Organized in partnership with the National Film Centre and the Central European Initiative, the debate will approach the evolution of digital distribution, as well as new models of distribution, having as starting point the analysis of innovative strategies for the production and distribution strategies of films from the region. The event will be moderated by Martin Blaney, renowned British journalist, Screen International correspondent for Germany, Austria and Sweden. The speakers will include Brian Chirls –multimedia artist, founder of Three Eyed Labs, Jamie King –VODO Founder, Tudor Giurgiu –TIFF President, Rik Vermeulen –TIFF Executive Director.

A film festival jury is an experience not quite like any other. There is no stronger bonding force than sitting together in the dark, for hour after hour, simultaneously undergoing the same pleasures and miseries. At the end of ten days you are close-knit friends – though that can all change horribly in a mere couple of hours, if the final meeting goes badly (which, surprisingly, is comparatively rare).

The concept of juries has changed a lot over the years that I have intermittently been involved in the process (from the big four of Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Moscow to tiny filmophile German burgs whose very names I cannot recall - and Cluj, naturally). The old tradition of 12 members (which led to the inconvenience of tie-votes and the presidential double-vote) has through a mixture of good sense and economic pressure given way to more manageable numbers – five in Cluj this year.

Thirty years ago, too, a festival like Cannes was more concerned with celebrity than whether the great painter or musician or couturist, or whatever was chosen, actually knew what a motion picture was, before mounting the red carpet. Now, even in Cannes, juries are for the most part made up of professionals, genuine peers of the people whose films they judge. In this respect, TIFF 2011 has (from my experience at least) the dream jury - every one a cinephile as well as a cineaste. Yesterday morning after only one night and two films in Cluj, the bonding process was clearly going well.

Laurence Herszberg has a dazzling career in cultural management, ranging from the Paris Opera to her present role as General Director of the Forum des Images in Paris. Cedomir Kolar graduated from the Belgrade Academy of Dramatic Arts, but since 1991 has been based in Paris, with a formidable list of productions – most made in imaginative co-production with central and east European countries - to his credit. In ten years since graduation, Vesela Kazakova has not only established herself as one of Bulgaria’s most gifted stage and screen actors, but has set up her own active production company.

Uberto Pasolini is Roman, but has brought prestige and profit to British cinema since he established Redwave Films in 1993. The company’s second production – luck or genius? – was THE FULL MONTY which grossed 250 million dollars. The many awards for Paolini’s debut film as director, MACHAN, set in Sri Lanka, included the audience prize at TIFF 2008. (“I am not a director” he asserts unconvincingly, “but there was no one else to do it”). Radu Muntean is a key figure in New Romanian Cinema, with THE PAPER MUST BE BLUE, BOOGIE and TUESDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS.

Muntean, Pasolini and Vesela Kazakova are virtual virgins at the jury game, but yesterday all five coped gallantly with every jury’s worst hazard – the preliminary press conference. To the inevitable if (jury-wise) irrelevant question of what is happening to the New Romanian Cinema, Muntean replied that it is important not to count awards like a sports team.  For Pasolini (who has himself been something of a one-man New British Cinema) ”the most important thing for any national cinema is to maintain contact with your own audience, your own people. Without the strength of its own public, a cinema withers. Britain is an example of this – a country where local audiences are not interested in local cinema, so that young film makers are compelled to DVD-driven or genre-driven work”.

To the invariable and unanswerable question at this annual inquisition, “What will be the jury’s criteria?”, it was again Pasolini who had the best, one-word-cryptic response - “Personal.”

David Robinson, for AperiTIFF

AperiTIFF editorialist David Robinson makes a portrait of cinematographer and producer Oleg Mutu, recipient of the Special Award of the 10th Transilvania IFF

I have been lucky to know a lot of great cinematographers, from Eisenstein’s Andrei Moskvin to Bergman’s Sven Nykvist. Every one, I discovered, shared the self-same dedication to script and director (so long as it was deserved), the same total dictatorship in his own department - and the same determination to stay very far from anything to do with organisation and the production end of things. Hence Oleg Mutu (one of the two recipients of this year’s Special TIFF Awards) is something of a historic exception, in combining the roles of producer and cinematographer.

Looking back, though, the combination has come about as something of a family affair. After a start in television, Mutu’s first film assignments were shorts by Cristian Mungiu and Hanno Höfer, and the three – all former schoolmates – were later to become partners in their own company, Mobra Films, which was to produce 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS and TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE.  Even before Mobra, however, Mutu had already contributed significantly to the explosion of New Romanian Cinema, as cinematographer of Cristi Puiu’s short, CIGARETTES AND COFFEE and the internationally groundbreaking THE DEATH OF MR LAZARESCU.

In recent interviews Mutu has said that the trio were impelled to establish their own production out of dissatisfaction with the status quo. It makes everything go much smoother, he says, even if it is sometimes exhausting to attempt both functions simultaneously.

Mutu is insistent that he aims to avoid imposing a preconceived personal style on his films. Starting with advance study of each script and project, he firmly defines the right style for each individual film before he begins. This is dramatically demonstrated in the very different “look” of the two non-Romanian films showing in this year’s TIFF, both shot by Mutu in the Ukraine, Sergei Loznitsa’s MY JOY and Alexander Mindadze’s INNOCENT SATURDAY.

On June 8, TIFF becomes the ideal destination for those in search of high quality films, impressive exhibitions and sensational concerts that go on all night long.

Starting 4.30 p.m., the audience is invited at VIP Lounge at Unirii Square at the opening of the photo exhibition: 10 Directors, 10 years of French-Language Belgian Cinema, the 2000’s.

The diversity of genres, from comedies, thrillers, dramas to animations made between 2000 and 2010, is the characteristic that seems to best define contemporary French-language Belgian cinema. Although of different genres and styles, all productions are singular due to the impact they exert on the audience.

The exhibit presents all these aspects of French-language Belgian cinema, as varied as it is fascinating. After the opening, the exhibit will move to TIFF Meeting Point, where it can be admired until June 12.

Also at TIFF Meeting Point, from 5.30 p.m., another exhibition opening will delight the audience: Imaging and Imagining – The Film World of Pat York. The wife of actor Michael York brings in front of the camera iconic names from the world of cinema, such as Sean Connery, Federico Fellini, Jane Fonda, Henry Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Anthony Hopkins, John Huston, Anjelica Huston, Gene Kelly, George Lucas, Liza Minnelli, Jack Nicholson, Laurence Olivier, Tom Stoppard, Barbra Streisand, John Travolta, Andy Warhol and Michael York. Captured over the span of four decades, the images, published in periodicals such as Vogue, Time, Newsweek, Life, Town and Country, Playboy, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue Hommes, The London Times, The Independent on Sunday and Stern embody an honest and simple dialogue, going beyond appearances to capture the essential, human, universal part.

From 7.00 p.m., Hotel Continental will host the exhibit Romanian Film Posters by Klára Tamás, which brings to the attention of the festival public a novel perspective on several Romanian classic movies. An impressive collection of posters made for local productions that were distributed in Romania and abroad throughout the Golden Age.

In addition, Christopher Landry’s much talked about album, The Silver Screen in the Golden Age. Romanian Film Posters between 1965 and 1989, will also be official launched in Cluj-Napoca during the opening on June 8.

The second edition of the Competition dedicated to local artists has reached its conclusion. From 8.30 p.m., during the Award Ceremony at Fabrica de Pensule, both the winner of the Grand Prize, and of the Special Mention offered by Fabrica de Pensule will be announced. The audience will also be able to watch a selection of the films made in Cluj, all contenders for this year’s Trophy worth 1500 Eur.

From 5.00 p.m. Arta Cinema will host a shattering documentary directed by Nicolae Mărgineanu: The Unmasking. The first film on the period when 600 Romanian students where sent to be re-educated at Pitești prison between 1949 and 1951.

The second edition of AlternaTIFF also starts on June 8. From 9.00 p.m., Jedam, a band coming from a region rich in cultural influences, elegantly combining local tradition with folk, rock and acid-jazz elements, will turn on the show at TIFF Meeting Point.

At 10.30 p.m., AlternaTIFF brings to Boiler Club the Anima Sound System band, one of the most famous South-Electro electro bands.

One more day until the start of the second edition of AlternaTIFF Music Festival. Between June 8 -11, at Meeting Point TIFF – the courtyard of the Art Museum and Boiler Club – Fabrica de Pensule, 12 foreign and Romanian bands, together with 5 DJs will animate TIFF nights.

Concert tickets can be bought at every TIFF ticketing point.

AlternaTIFF starts on Wednesday, June 8, at 9.00 p.m., at TIFF Meeting Point, with Jedam band.

AlternaTIFF 2011 headliners include: Anima Sound System (Hungary), Nedry (UK), AIRtist (Hungary, Austria), Snails (Moldova), Omul cu Şobolani, Luna Amară, Discoballs, Electric Brother, Electric Fence, Robin and the Backstabbers, Jedam, Lights out!, Gojira, Dubase, K-LU, The Filters from Romania.

This year’s AlternaTIFF event-concert will be held by Gandu Circus, on June 10, at 10.30 pm in Boiler Club. The audience of this year’s most scandalous film, the Indian production Gandu –presented in the Wasted Youth section of the festival, will have the chance to listen to the live performance of the film’s soundtrack, composed by Five Little Indians in collaboration with Gandu the Rapper. The aggressive mixture of sex, drugs, Bengali rap, ska-punk and hardcore will break every Indian convention on film and music. Neel, the guitarist FLI and Gandu the Rapper will hit the public with a real shot of adrenaline in Boiler Club.

On the stage at TIFF Meeting Point, on June 10, at 9.00 p.m., Electric Brother will launch his second solo album – On Earth. Electric Brother has been an omnipresent character on the electronic scene since 1999: he is a music producer, has worked with Matze and DJ Vasile, creating NSK, the songs on his first album have featured on compilations such as Paris Lounge vol. 3, Panorama and Ibiza Fever, he is a member of Aievea band, and together with Vlaicu Golcea he has composed the soundtrack for The Rage (d. Radu Muntean); currently he hosts the show Retroelectro on Radio Guerilla.

AlternaTIFF has in store two unmissable concerts held by Anima Sound System from Hungary and the British band Nedry.

Anima Sound System is one of the first electro bands founded in Eastern Europe. Since its debut in 1994, the band has gone through several changes: from changes of its members to chances of its musical approach: acid-jazz, trip-hop, drum’n bass and ethno-disco. In 2010, the band launched a new album inspired by 80s European electro-dance.

Nedry is a British band founded in 2008. Their sound can hardly be characterized, since the band follows a transgressive path into electro music. Their nonchalant passing through dub-step, post-rock, noise, dubbed in the most experimental manner by the voice of leading singer Ayu, makes the Nedry concert the must-see event of this year’s AlternaTIFF edition.

The second edition of AlternaTIFF is organized by  Indiescouts, TIFF and Boiler Club, and is presented by Burn Studios.

Few of the many people who know him would sense that, behind his light-hearted attitude and edgy sense of humor, Mihai Chirilov is an obsessive cinema nerd and a stubborn workaholic. Mihai Chirilov (who some call Chiri, some Cristi and some Mihai – although the latter is only his nom de plume) is, I strongly believe, the creatively passionate heartbeat of the Transylvania International Film Festival. Tudor Giurgiu, the founder and president of the festival, proved his mettle as a sharp entrepreneur and a visionary manager when he made the lucky and very inspired choice of picking Mihai as artistic lead and head programmer for TIFF.

TIFF is in every way a pioneering organization. It started from scratch, out of genuine idealism, and became both an internationally-renowned event and a high-spirited cinematic hub. Chirilov’s daring choices, combined with his comprehensive knowledge of the international film arena and a determined taste for uncompromising artistic endeavors, gives TIFF its distinctive flavor. This is especially compelling as the festival takes place in a profoundly traditional cultural context, and the risk of irritating the local conservative sensitivities always runs high. Astutely bridging local pride and the younger generation’s hunger for less conformist art forms, TIFF gradually achieved mainstream acceptance over the course of ten years. This is due in great part to the mix of irreverence and solid cosmopolitan touches in its programming policy. Chirilov is not the kind to brag about it. The truth is that TIFF would have grown up without him. But the festival’s content would have been, no doubt, a pale shadow of what it is today, and cinema fans would have surely contemplated a less dazzling and lively event.

Sometimes anniversaries also have something sad about them. A lifelong friend and mentor for Mihai Chirilov, the brilliant film critic and irreplaceable film lover and supporter Alex. Leo Șerban passed away in April, leaving us to count him among the stars. Chiri admired and loved him dearly, as did we and many others. Mihai was in the middle of the preparations for the festival when Leo died, but he didn’t waver. It’s rare to see Chiri publicly emotional. As someone who has known loss since childhood, he also knows that, like in Magnolia – one of his favorite movies – the only possible way to find atonement is to briskly and irreversibly move forward.

Corina Șuteu, Director of Romanian Cultural Institute in New York

This magazine is living proof that there’s plenty to celebrate in 2011: 10 years since the release of Cristi Puiu’s Stuff and Dough; 10 years of worldwide supremacy for the New Romanian Cinema; the 10th edition of TIFF; and, last but not least, the first complete retrospective of Lucian Pintilie’s work (consisting of 10 feature films, plus a short) ever to be shown in Romania, at TIFF. I cheer to each of these anniversaries, but at the end of the day, all I am left with is a rather dark celebration. This is why I dedicate this special issue to Alex. Leo Șerban, the 10-star cinema buff and the priceless friend to whom I owe everything I know about film, and who is no longer here to join us today in honoring the New Romanian Cinema. He is here with us, though, by contributing to this very magazine with a 10-year old piece on Stuff and Dough, his most recent essay on the New Romanian Cinema (originally published in Film Comment) and his last article, unfinished, about Lucian Pintilie’s film career.

To quote his own words about Cristian Nemescu: Romanian cinema desperately needs a new Alex. Leo Șerban – “the gentle, joyful and flexible flamboyant postmodernist whose legacy is, sadly, post mortem.”

Mihai Chirilov, Artistic Director - Transilvania International Film Festival

Text published in the AperiTIFF Special Edition to be launched on June 10 at TIFF Lounge, celebrating 10 years of the Romanian new wave and 10 years of TIFF.

Hungarian Day, scheduled this year on Wednesday, June 8, brings in 2011 to Cluj-Napoca six of the most successful Hungarian films of the previous year, as well as the best-rated Hungarian short films at present.

Programmed at Florin Piersic Cinema, at 5.30 p.m., The Turin Horse (Hungary-France-Germany-Switzerland), Béla Tarr’s much talked about film, awarded the Grand Jury Prize and FIPRESCI Award in the 2011 Official Competition at Berlin Film Festival, is the headliner of this year’s selection. The script is inspired by the true story of 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche protecting a horse from abuse. The film details the lives of the horse’s coachman, his daughter and the horse itself. Sound designer Gábor Erdélyi will meet the public after the screening, for a Q&A session.

Cluj and local film production are given special attention during the Hungarian Day: an absolute phenomenon for the Hungarian film community in Transylvania, Antigone, or Let's Make Movies in Transylvania! (d. Jakab-Benke Nándor, Romania-Hungary, 2010), a no-budget independent film that tells the story of a crew of young filmmakers from Cluj, managed by a Hungarian director, who set out to make an adaptation of the classic Greek drama Antigone. The festival public will be able to watch this daring feature in the presence of the entire crew at Arta Cinema, at 2.30 p.m.

Mănăştur Open Air will host, from 10.00 p.m., in the presence of Attila Árpa, the screening of the Hungarian comedy Czukor Show (d. Tamás Dömötör, Hungary-Sweden, 2010). The audience will recognize references to several contemporary TV shows, including the starting point of the film: a man from the countryside takes part in the show at the request of his sister, whom he hasn’t seen for six years. She has decided to bring her family together before the cameras. Emotions overflow and two tragedies unfold at the same time: a love triangle and the broader issue of media exploitation of personal distress.

Event-screening at TIFF: two of the best rated films at the moment, Children of the Green Dragon (d. Bence Miklauzic) and the short film brought to Cluj directly after its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival 2011, Beast (d. Attila Till) are screened together at Arta Cinema, at 12:00. Bence Miklauzic’s feature will no doubtedly hit the taste of the same public who enjoyed Marian Crișan’s debut, Morgen. The story centers on Máté, a lonely, divorced real estate agent who is put in charge of selling a suburban storage building by his boss. The warehouse is rented by the Chinese, who keep their semi-legal goods in there. The stock comprising several thousand boxes is guarded by a Chinese man, Wu, who also lives in the warehouse. During this forced association a strange friendship begins between the two lonely men. Attila Till, the director of Beast, and main actor Szabolcs Thuróczy will be present at the end of the screening to discuss their short film: the story of a not very affluent Hungarian farmer, who lords over his wife, children and his “hired” slave. Cut off from the rest of the world on a distant farm in the Great Plains, he tries to uphold a family ideal he formulated from rigid traditions. The close-knit, albeit extreme, human relations sweep these characters towards tragedy.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize - Hungarian Film Week 2010, Vespa (d.  Diana Groó) was one of the most popular Hungarian films at festivals around the world during the previous year. A charming and funny road-movie, the film is an incurssion in the world of childhood. Twelve-year-old Lali wins a bar of chocolate at cards that contains a winning coupon for a Vespa motorbike inside the wrapper. However, the motorbike is in Budapest, so he leaves his community in Bereghát not only to find the prize of his dreams, but also his father, whom he has not seen for a long time. Vespa is schedule at 10.00 a.m. at Arta Cinema.

The eclectic Hungarian Day line-up includes a noir: at the French Cultural Center, starting 10PM, will screen Kolorado Kid (dir. András B. Vágvölgyi). In the summer of 1959, Béla Kreuzer, a gambler, is arrested. He is placed in detention and at first he thinks this is because his dubious activities on the racecourse but it soon turns out that the reason is his participation in the revolution in 1956. During the investigation old friends turn their backs on him as does his girlfriend. The only person he can trust is his cellmate. The prosecutor asks for capital punishment, but the judge opts for a sentence of 15 years in jail, which Béla Kreuzer serves to the last day. When he comes out is 1974 and finds the world is no longer the same.

Filmtett.ro, the only art and film education Hungarian portal edited in Transylvania, will be launched during the Hungarian Day at TIFF 2011! Filmtett (in Romanian: Filmact) was a monthly publication, from June 2000 to January 2008, when it became available solely online. The publication offers film lovers a portal updated daily with news, film reviews, studies on film history and useful databases. On Wednesday, at 6.30 p.m., at TIFF Meeting Point, on its 11-year anniversary since the publication of the magazine’s first issue, the editorial staff of Filmtett present the portal’s new version, its structure, facilities and advantages, including a surprise for Romanian speaking film lovers!

Starting on June 6, 2011, the tickets for the tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival can also be bought online, on www.tiff.ro, PROGRAM -> FILMS menu.

In order to purchase tickets, users must be logged in on www.tiff.ro, by filling in the required fields: LAST NAME, FIRST NAME, PHONE NUMBER, E-MAIL ADDRESS and PASSWORD. After you fill in this data and you will receive the registration confirmation on your e-mail account, and your account is valid and can be used.

You can purchase tickets for any screening in the TIFF official programme, for 8 RON for tickets bought in advance and 10 RON for screenings scheduled on the same day.

For completing the purchase, select COMPLETE AND PAY, in order to access the payment menu.

When the order is complete, you will receive a confirmation email that will include info on purchased tickets, as well as a confirmation code for your purchase (for example, BC1A1B136). You will be required to provide payment confirmation or code confirmation in order to pick up your tickets.

Tickets can be picked up at any TIFF ticketing point based on the confirmation code.

Access to screenings is not possible only based on presenting the confirmation code. You have to show the ticket purchased at TIFF ticketing points.

Cinema FLORIN PIERSIC, Mihai Viteazul Square 11, Cinema ARTA, Universităţii 3, Cinema VICTORIA, Blvd. Eroilor, 51, Booha Bar, Piezişă, 19, Unirii Square, Odeon Cineplex (at Polus Center), Avram Iancu 492-500.

Tickets purchased online are subject to the same regulation present in the festival’s official ticketing policy.

For details and questions, feel free to contact any TIFF ticketing point or write to bilete@tiff.ro.

Special screenings, theme parties, unique performances, notable guests. These are just some of the attractions for Tuesday, June 7, at the tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival.

Radu Muntean, member of the Official Competition jury, contender for the 2003 Transilvania Trophy with his debut feature, Rage will be present at TIFF Lounge, in Unirii Square, from 5.00 p.m. An old friend of the festival, author of 7 TIFF official spots during 2004 - 2010, Muntean will take part at an informal discussion with the public.

At 8.00 p.m., The Hungarian Theatre will host the forth Theatre at TIFF performance, Roşia Montană – on the physical and political line by Ştefan Peca, Gianina Cărbunariu and Andreea Vălean. Winner of the Best show award at the Romanian Dramaturgy Festival (FDR) in Timișoara, Roşia Montană – on the physical and political line is an extensive discussion on the world we live in, on the subject of morality in contemporary society, on the polarization of this society on one single subject, on the way in which mass-media chooses to reflect (or not) this phenomenon, on poverty, vulnerability and searching for solutions to solve this state of things.

One of the highlights of this year’s edition is the 100% section, a retrospective of film directors’ Lucian Pintilie and Pierre Étaix full body of work. Remastered with the help of Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma, together with Studio 37 and Pierre Étaix, all five feature films and three short films made by French director and comedian Pierre Étaix will be screened for the first time all in one place at TIFF. Thus, from 6.00 p.m., at Students’ Culture House, together with the short film Happy Birthday / Heureux Anniversaire, the audience will be able to see one of the major films of the French comedian, Le Soupirant / The Suitor (France, 1963), written and directed together with one of the legendary screenwriters of the past century, Jean-Claude Carrière, which tells, with irresistible humor, the story of a kindhearted young Parisian of good family, obsessed by his scientific research, who suddenly gives up studying the stars at his parents' insistence and sets out to find a wife.

One of the most spectacular Transylvanian historic monuments, Banffy Castle in Bonțida, 35 km close to Cluj, will be, for the second consecutive year, the host of an event screening. Odessa in fiamme / Odessa in Flames (r. Carmine Gallone, 1942), one of masterpieces of European cinema during the Second World War, recently re-discovered in the Cinecitta film archives in Rome, will be presented to the public on June 7, at 9.30 p.m. Both the story line and the story of the print, considered until recently lost forever, have attracted the attention of film lovers all around the world. Awarded the Grand Prize at Venice Film Festival in 1942, Odessa in Flames is a Romanian-Italian co-production that presents a painful chapter in WWII history: the Bessarabian refugees drama and the ordeal they suffered under Soviet occupation, after the ultimatum on June 28, 1940, when USSR summoned Romania to give over the territory between Prut and Dniester. The famous opera singer Maria Cebotari, a Romanian star between the two wars, plays the part of a Bessarabian opera singer, living with her son in Chisinau during the Soviet invasion. The boy is taken to Odessa, to be raised as a Bolshevik. In order to save her son, the mother accepts to sing Russian songs in bars, theatres and cafes.

They went down in the history of online Romanian cinema, now they can be met in flesh and blood. RObotzi sent their Creative Monkeyz studio representatives at 9.30 p.m. at TIFF Meeting Point at the marathon screening of all 19 episodes of the beloved Romanian animation series – the first to expand exclusively online. After the screening, the creators of Mo and F.O.C.A - Ramona, Codin, Mihai and Cezar will answer questions from those who want to find out some of the secrets of the most popular robots in Romanian cinema. The evening will end with a RObotzi theme party: Obsession Club, starting 11.00, will host the official launch of the first single on the RObotzi - Best of Greatest Hits Ever album, which will be available this summer.

One of the most active authors of film posters in Romania before 1989, graphic designer Klára Tamás, returns to Cluj-Napoca to present to the Romanian public an impressive collection of posters made for local productions which were distributed in Romania and abroad throughout the Golden Age. Christopher Landry's renowned album, The Silver Screen in the Golden Age. Romanian Film Posters between 1965 and 1989 will also be officially launched in Cluj-Napoca during the opening of the exhibition.

June 6 - 9, Hotel Continental

The forth day of the tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival offers its public and guests, besides the large number of screenings, an extremely diverse programme of special events.

TIFF continues the now tradional campaign for supporting the Meeting Point home: The National Art Museum in Cluj-Napoca. Thus, the festival resumes the series of charity screenings for one of the town’s most important cultural institutions. In order to raise funds for the museum, TIFF will screen one of the most hyped titles of the year: In a Better World (d. Susanne Bier, Denmark, 2010), winner of the 2011 Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film will run, for the first time in Romania, on Monday, June 6, at 9.00 p.m., in one of the new festival venues: Students’ Culture House. The story of award-winning Danish film traces elements from a refugee camp in Africa to the grey humdrum of everyday life in a Danish provincial town. The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait. Soon, friendship transforms into a dangerous alliance and a breathtaking pursuit in which life is at stake. Susanne Bier’s new feature film is a drama about the destruction of the idyll and the personal choice between revenge and pacifism. The unique price for tickets for all categories of viewers, including accredited guests of the festival, is 10 RON, and all proceeds from ticket sales will go to the Museum.

Theatre at TIFF, another novelty of the festival’s tenth edition, proceeds on Monday with two original performances, hosted by the Hungarian Theatre. At 8.00 p.m., theatre lovers will be able to see Ich Clown, by Vera Ion and Sorin Poamă. The play has as starting point the authors' personal experience, the moment when they decided to leave Romania. Adi is a young Romanian actor, with no job, money or future plans. After his girlfriend dumps him, Adi decides to do something to change his life. Together with his friends, William and Dragoș, he plans to see Europe, all three dressed as clowns.

The first performance of the event-show of Autobahn, written by Neil LaBute and directed by Mihaela Sîrbu, is scheduled to start at 9.30 p.m., in the parking lot of the Hungarian Theatre. The audience will have the possibility to experiment a completely exceptional theatre show, played every night between June 6 – 10, at the same hour, by 12 actors for 18 viewers in 6 cars roaming around Cluj. More than staging a play, Autobahn is an artistic and socio-cultural experiment, a funny and voyeuristic road movie, accelerated by unsettling dramas and dark comedy moments, as its protagonists characterize it, which dares its audience: What can be more appropriate then to shut yourself in a car in order to force a discussion or to make silence seem tangible? This situation has been widely used in film, but playwright Neil LaBute, features in 2007 in the 3x3 section, is maybe the first one to transform this situation in a theatrical event. At least 15 tickets still available for Autobahn, which can be bought for the price of 70 RON at TIFF ticketing points.

TIFF Meeting Point, in the courtyard of the National Art Museum, will host, on Monday, June 6, at 9.30 p.m., an absolute premiere: Discovery Channel presents ten short-film documentaries about the stories of a few Romania people extraordinary due to their passions, peculiarities and spirit of adventure. The ten protagonists of the documentaries were chosen through the “Anyone can be a hero” campaign, carried out on Discovery’s facebook page. The TIFF audience will be able to vote its favorites on the same page, during June 3 – 11, and the winning story will receive 3,000 EUR.

Continental Hotel, the venue where the public can admire the TIFFashion event-exhibitions – showcasing film and theatre costumes from classic Romanian works, but also Romanian film posters from the Golden Age, is, starting 7.00 p.m., the host of the exhibition opening signed by students at the Art and Design University in Cluj-Napoca. The exhibition includes visual proposals created by students for the promotional merchandise of the festival’s tenth edition, that are featured on T-shirts, pens, coffee mugs and original football gear. All the students’ daring proposals will thus have the chance to meet the festival public.

The 10^th edition of TIFF presents director Lucian Pintilie’s full body of work. In the following days he will arrive in Cluj and will be present at the screenings. The following self-portrait has been published in the AperiTIFF Special Edition.

I have the biography of an artist who has been denied, exceptionally, its most picturesque elements. It is true that in the beginning my artistic expression was radical, but my fury was rather hormonal. Now that I think about it, I had an alcoholic and apolitical adolescence that was extreme and frenetic in its good humour. I was not afraid of the Securitate, because I had this mix of stamina and lack of imagination that simply inhibited the stupid, humiliating fear I should have felt. I couldn’t care less about interdictions. My energy was spent on practical jokes and drinking. Like the nice chap I was, I would party, shortly after being fired, in the company of those who had just fired me. This may very well be the source of my special take on the complicity between the executioner and his victim – see the guillotine scene in the priest’s house in The Oak.

Fortunately, this sweet care-free confusion didn’t last long. My identity started taking shape. This anarchist nihilistic gelatine that I had been until then started crystallizing. I was maturing. Censorship – that is, the Securitate, as censorship was just one of the specialized branches of the Securitate – was also maturing. We were growing up together. Our awarenesses as executioner and victim, respectively, took shape simultaneously, and I could understand how, in a country like ours, which mirrored a world turned on its head, the two roles could sometimes end up reversed.

I had this revelation on the occasion of my first show, in which I abandoned my youthful and random nihilism in favor of a more structured and assumed nihilism. It was a satire, Fools under the Moonlight, an exceptional Romanian play, pervaded by a Gogolian feeling. Ceauşescu banned the show himself, but, unlike other interdictions, this one was happening as Romania was opening towards hypocritically liberal times. So shows in our situation were offered the chance to be revised, improved. Just this one time, I obeyed, and I corrected the show several times. I did that so well that by the end there was nothing left of it. Only then, once the massacre had been enacted, did the censorship commission in charge with revising the show vanish, into thin air – leaving me holding a corpse and marred by the endless shame of having tried to collaborate with them. This is when I realized the grotesque dimension of Romanian socialism, the mark of its unique monstrosity, a kind of catastrophic and carnivalesque dimension that made it so special in the Eastern-European landscape. A crazy world in which any sign of normalcy was forbidden. What is Romania today, if not the same world, turned on its head, a parody of normalcy?

The Oak was made very smoothly, with no resistance from the official administration. In the days following the Revolution, I was assigned to be the director of the Film Production Studio of the Romanian Ministry of Culture. I took advantage of the enthusiasm and confusion that followed the Revolution to start the coproduction without delay. The obstacles that did not fail to materialize along the way only added more color to the paradise I was in. But paradise would not exist without contrasts. It goes without saying that this kind of ideal situation is unrepeatable; yet the co-production in general is the only chance to survive for an impoverished cinema like ours. However prestigious the awards, the cost of labor in our country continues to be – and that’s not something to be proud of – outrageously cheap. Let’s take advantage of our poverty! We can still make films with modest investments.

The film opens with a Christmas scene in which Securitate employees in a state of playful, drunken excitement, act out a parody of the merciless annihilation of all class enemies. Like in Reenactment, this is a parody of reality, an act of defiance against reality, accomplished through carnivalesque blasphemy. Everything is carnivalesque: the massacre, the pistol, etc. Towards the end of the film, in the last act entitled “The Massacre of the Innocents” reality fires back at this blasphemous challenge. Emptied of its carnivalesque marks, reality turns out to be a vision of death. And this time the massacre is real, the pistol is real, the massacred children are all real.

You surely noticed that the pistol is never fired. It’s on the verge of being fired a few times, but it never is. What is the destiny of the bullet waiting to be fired inside the gun? Self-destruction, or fight? It’s a question that hasn’t been answered by the Romanian Revolution. The exorcism of death (that’s what we’re talking about), through desecration, through bringing out the carnivalesque, is not an aesthetic attitude, but an existential one, an existential challenge. It’s a pure death-denying cry, in the most classical tradition of carnivalesque blasphemy. How else can one understand Nela’s gesture, who, a pint of beer in her hand, clinks his glass against the urn containing her father’s ashes, if not as a carnivalesque blasphemy, a futile cry of protest?

Lucian Pintilie, for AperiTIFF 2011

Bulgarian filmmaker Dimitar Mitovski's feature debut Mission London, which is being shown in TIFF's Supernova section tomorrow evening, has attracted its fair share of superlatives after its successful cinema run last year when it became the most successful Bulgarian film of all time.

For starters, it beat Avatar to the number one spot in the box-office – 376,843 admissions compared to 300,205 for Cameron's 3D extravaganza, and thanks to the success of Mitovski's film, the Bulgarian national market share jumped from 1.6% in 2009 to 8.8% in 2010. There was even talk that the director and his producers might have the makings of a franchise when they spoke of Mission: Moscow at the film's presentation at the Moscow Film Festival last year.

Moreover, 2011 started well with another local feature debut, Viktor Chouchkov Jr.'s Tilt, which opened on a record 31 screens and topped the box-office chart for four weeks in row in February.

In Romania, however, the scale of Mission London's success would seem to be far out of the reach of any the films being made here, regardless of whether there are any attempts at genre cinema or not.

The most successful local film in the past five years was Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days which posted 89,339 admissions - less than a quarter of Mission London's total.

But most filmmakers of the New Romanian Cinema, as one director suggested earlier this year, are satisfied if their films reach 10,000 cinema-goers. Is this because of the limited number of screens available for their films in Romania or because they focus on recent history and realistic portrayals of social issues in their stories?

At the same time, conscious attempts to produce home-grown comedy and action – from Sergiu Nicolaescu's Poker and The Survivor to Jesus del Cerro's Ho Ho Ho - have attracted attendances under 30,000.

The discrepancy with the Bulgarian experience can perhaps be explained in part by a difference in attitudes to cinema-going. As Romanian critic Lucian Maier explains, genre films' target audience of young males are „watching films not in the cinemas, but on their computers. If they have to choose (and most of them have to!) between a pack of cigarettes/or two beers/or a cocktail and a movie seen in a cinema, they would go for the first category.“

Mission London's producer Ivan Doykov of SIA commented that the change in Bulgaria first of all came from the fact that all of the successful Bulgarian films (in terms of admissions) are made by the new generation of young producers and directors who are focused on producing films which are much more oriented to the regular audience than to the critics and festivals. Secondly, most of these titles are genre pictures, and all of them had strong and wide marketing campaigns. The success of these films is combination of both factors.

Asked if Mission London is set to become part of a franchise, he replied:

“Mission London made 400 000 admissions, outperforming even Avatar and turning into the top film in Bulgaria for 2010 and the most successful Bulgarian film of the last 25 years. Even the results of Pirates of The Caribbean 4 now for the first 10 days are weaker than those of Mission London for its first 10 days. Tilt made about total of 140 000 admissions with two times as many copies as Mission London. The same is the situation and with the rest of the American films we are talking about. So actually Mission London set such high results that it will be difficult in the following years for even the US titles to outperform it. Yes we have ideas for a franchise for Mission London and we are developing something. At the same time we are developing a few more projects in different genres, which we are aiming at wide international release featuring well known international cast and where the financing involves equity investments.”

“I believe”, he added, “that the weak Romanian admissions are based on the fact that the local film center [CNC] strongly supports arthouse films - which have led to the success of Romanian cinema in Cannes in the last few years -, and all the commercial production is produced for TV in the form of TV series. The broadcasters are not interested in investing in local genre pictures because the investment is too big for their size. At the same time, the period for which their investment might be repaid is too long and the actual investment itself is too risky. We have the similar problem here, but we are trying to invent all sorts of possible deals to involve prviate broadcasters in our productions. Mission London was the first one which managed to do this and the result is obvious.”

Martin Blaney, for AperiTIFF 2011

Neither Michael Madsen nor his screen work fit into easy definitions. INTO ETERNITY has won enthusiasm and prizes as a fundamental eco film, which it never set out to be: it is rather a reflection, inspired by the Onkalo nuclear waste storage installation, on our inevitable ignorance of what is “eternity”. Equally Madsen himself is something more complex than a documentarist. He is a multi-media artist, combining a variety of disciplines to serve the intellectual or philosophical task in hand.

He abandoned theatre studies in 1996, to create “The Sound Art Gallery”, a massive sound installation in the main square of the city, for Copenhagen’s year as cultural capital. The project was duplicated in Finland and lasted several years, but in 1998, at the mid-point of his twenties, he retired, to reflect on combining sound and images.  The result was his first film, CELESTIAL NIGHT – A FILM ON VISIBILITY (2003), shot in Japan, which, he points out, still has influence on our visual experience, through electronics. The film asks, what does it mean to see?  and makes reference to the legendary sightless emperor, Amayono Mikoto. “It was a good experience. I was using myself, seeing the world as a tourist, and incidentally exploring my own visual skills”.

“TO DAMASCUS (2005) was inspired, in terms of narrative and emotions, by Strindberg’s first so-called dream-play - essentially about being alienated, not able to trust your own feelings. I had two co-directors, and to equate Strindberg’s feelings, we drove in a car from Copenhagen to Damascus trying to film things with emotional connections with the play. We knew we had to go southwest, and our only guide was the sun reflected in the right rear mirror. For sure we made a lot of detours, including three weeks in Romania. In the end it was essentially made in the editing room – with a ratio of 100:1. A nightmare!

“Onkalo interested me not for the ecological implications, but for the phenomenon that for the first time we have to believe in something that is intended to last for 100,000 years. We cannot compare that time scale with cathedrals or pyramids – which are a mere 4000 years old.”

The partners in the project are Sweden and Finland, which share favourable geological features, and the facility is mined deep into rock on the island of Olkiluoto. The installation is designed to work without human intervention for ten millennia, until the waste is harmless. *So for the first time we are anticipating the first potentially post-human construction  - because it is designed in the certainty that within this period our civilisation and all knowledge of nuclear science will cease to exist.

“There is no transcendental thought in this concept, as there certainly was in the cathedrals and pyramids. The preferred strategy of Finland is to try to hide it from everybody now and for eternity. Above all, they fear human curiosity. We opened the pyramids, knowing nothing. But if we expect that knowledge of what is radiation will disappear, if the real fear is human curiosity, this is not a technological marvel but a threat of something within ourselves”.

Madsen’s future plans include three film projects - one a 3D film about Denmark’s national heritage - but stay true to his multi-media cross-fertilisation.  He is currently starting a new theatre group, and teaching a workshop for individuals who can prove that they have absolutely no idea for a film...

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David Robinson, for AperiTIFF 2011

The third screening in the festival's traditional competitive sections, the Official Competition and the Shadows Shorts, is scheduled this Monday, starting 6 45 PM in Cinema Victoria. Zeina Durra's The Imperialists are Still Alive! (US, 2010), makes its premiere in the Cluj Official Competition. The film tells the story of Asya, a successful visual artist working in Manhattan and living the life of the hip and glamorous, replete with exclusive art parties, supermodels, and stretch limousines while she carefully follows the situation in the Middle East on television. Asya learns that her childhood friend, Faisal, has disappeared - the victim of a purported CIA abduction. That same night, she meets Javier, a sexy Mexican PhD student, and romance blossoms. Javier finds Asya’s conspiracy theories overly paranoid - but nothing in Asya’s world is as it seems...

Screening together with Zeina Durra's Transilvania Trophy contender is Shadows Shorts competitor Deus Irae (dir. Pedro Cristiani, Argentina, 2010) a fantasy thriller bringing on the big screen a bizzare borderline world, where alternate realities are kept from getting in dangerous touch with each other by a secret order of priests, who devote their lives and souls to protect this equilibrium border. 

Wim Wenders' 3D dance documentary Pina screens at TIFF on Saturday evening. Martin Blaney spoke with the director about entering uncharted territory in the making of this film.

What were the greatest challenges for you working in 3D?

Wim Wenders: The thing was: nobody could really tell me much about it. The few people who worked with the medium had worked under rather different conditions. I had the 3D pioneer in Europe at my side, Alain Derobe, but he had also never done a feature film in 3D before. But he also knew a lot about the physiological aspect of 3D which was utterly important. The challenge was to find a different approach to 3D. Instead of that “blockbuster attraction” feeling, Alain and I wanted to create a very natural style, a total ease of looking at things, so that the film could be elegant and fluid and you would forget after a while that it was in 3D. The biggest problem was stroboscoping. Our dancers would often move quickly, and that is difficult in 3D. Every little flaw in shooting on film is magnified, even quadrupled in 3D.

What is it about the Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater that particularly lent itself to 3D?

WW: The key element of dancers is space. With each step, each gesture they conquer space. A flat screen does never do it justice. And especially for Pina’s playful, tender, “human” kind of dance, without access to “space itself” you are not in the same room, not in the dancers’ realm. Dance and 3D, that is a marriage made in heaven.

Can you see continuing with 3D for future projects?

WW: It could be hard to go “back to normal” now. I must say I am bit addicted to 3D. I have made another two short films in the format. It might be interesting to see what happened to the flat image and my perception of it, if I go back. But right now I would rather go on in 3D because I have the feeling that I’ve only just scratched the surface of what is possible, and have not even looked into storytelling.

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Martin Blaney, for AperiTIFF 2011

It is an odd irony of the annual festival circuit that the trail leads directly from Cannes to Cluj – two festivals that could hardly be more different. Cannes is the richest festival in the world; Cluj one of the bravest. Cannes loves the great names; Cluj is exciting because it seeks out the new and unknown – it’s all discovery, challenging us with artists and titles of whom we haven’t yet heard.  Cannes attracts all the most pretentious people in the movie world (though there are nice ones too); the excitement of Cluj is the unaffected, uninhibited enthusiasm of its youthful audience, devouring films all day and partying through the night. Cluj is much more fun.

Cannes 2011 seemed, though, to herald a new spirit in cinema, and overall the films were markedly better for it. There was a sense that filmmakers were trying to come to grips with a world that they see in social, moral and ecological collapse. They touched on cosmic destruction (Von Trier’s Melancholia, Malick’s The Tree of Life). They dreamed of sincerely good people successfully battling the establishment (Kaurismaki’s Le Havre, Robert Guédiguian’s Les Neiges de Kilimanjaro, the Dardennes’ The Kid With the Bike), or well-principled monsters slaughtering the bad (Bruno Dumont’s Hors Satani). There was no respect for establishments (Moretti’s Habemus Papa). It was energising and cathartic. And now we have Cluj.

*   *   * 

There is no escaping a cloud over the start of TIFF 2011: we are without Alex Leo Șerban, who died at 51 on April 9.

Alex Leo and I first met, with Mihai Chirilov, at the Venice festival around 2000. We laughed a lot and were firmly bonded ever after. In 2001 he introduced me to Cristi Puiu and Stuff and Dough, and thereby initiated my curiosity and enthusiasm for Romanian culture and the new Romanian cinema. Without him I would probably not be in Cluj today. I was not the only one to come under his benign but irresistible influence.  Romanian cinema could never have hoped for a better and more convincing international ambassador, or the tyro film-makers for a better mentor.  For five years he was a key guest at the Romanian Festival in New York.

As well as a passionate authority on films, he was visual artist, essayist and literary critic. He translated W.H. Auden and Samuel Beckett into Romanian (no simple undertaking), and his book on von Trier (with Mihai Chirilov and Ștefan Bălan) merits international translation.

His tastes in film were catholic – genre as well as classic – and his opinions unpredictable, but always rationalised unarguably, which made him a formidable jury member. He was an unequalled panellist on the various seminars on Romanian film in Bucharest and at TIFF, with an unusual gift for shaping and summarising a discussion and unfailing respect for the opponent (who would nevertheless in the end usually find himself demolished in the argument).

All these gifts were embodied in a person of incomparable charm and fun. The broad smile and searching eyes behind the spectacle lenses were in a state of constant animation. He talked fast and you never knew if the next thought would be wise, witty or outrageously wicked. We miss him a lot, but he won’t be entirely absent from TIFF: he has left his indelible mark on Romanian film and culture - and on all of us who were proud to be his friends.

David Robinson, for AperiTIFF 2011

Saturday, June 4, at Ursus Open Air, brought Italian actor and director Michele Placido, recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award offered to an outstanding personality of the European cinema presented by actress Monica Bîrlădeanu in front of the 1,000 viewers present in Unirii Square to see the most recent production signed by the famous filmmaker: the feature Vallanzasca – Angels of Evil, premiered at Venice Film Festival 2010 and starring the well-known Romanian actress.

During the touching ceremony hosted by Mihai Chirilov, the Artistic Director of the festival, who mentioned the extensive career of the Italian guest so well beloved by the Romanian public for his memorable role in the TV series The Octopus / La Piovra, Placido thanked the organizers for presenting him with the award. The filmmaker appeared on stage holding issue no. 2 of AperiTIFF, the official festival daily, which featured the line „Welcome, commissary Cattani!” on the first page. I’m happy and honored to be here, in Cluj, at the tenth edition of the festival. This newspaper, AperiTIFF, was the first thing I saw when I landed, and I have to say that, looking at the cover photo, I’ve realized that even if I’ve grown old, I’m still a hansome man. I was happy to find Monica Bîrlădeanu’s name in the main article, whom I want to thank for introducing me to the New Romanian Wave and its representatives. Michele Placido told the TIFF audience that Monica Bîrlădeanu will star in his next feature, an Italian-Romanian co-production on the subject of migration of Italians to Germany in the 1960s, which will be shot in Novermber, in Romania: this way, the Italian people still have a chance to realize what emigration means.

Placido also thanked the organizers for selecting Vallanzasca in the festival line-up: Vallanzasca is a film that many people in Italy have boycotted, because it shows that Italy doesn’t mean only The Pope, Berlusconi, Michelangelo and art, mentioning it’s the filmmakers’ duty to tell the story of their country, and that the impressive portrait of the feared mobster Renato Vallanzasca proves that has the freedom to recount anything.

Michele Placido’s name complements a list of prestigious names from European cinema, awarded the same trophy, list that includes personalities such as Wim Wenders, Catherine Deneuve, Claudia Cardinale, Franco Nero, Vanessa Redgrave and Annie Girardot.

Given a sustained round of applause by the audience in Cluj, the recent winner of the TIFF Lifetime Achievement Award offered to an outstanding personality of the European cinema will have an informal meeting with the press and public on Sunday, June 5, at 12.30, in the TIFF Lounge pavilion in Unirii Square.

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Within the ecoTIFF project, the organizers have set up a series of films and actions meant to direct the public attention towards protecting the environment.

The TIFF project dedicated to the World Environment Day includes the screening of three films which raise questions on the causes which contribute to the destruction of the planet and to the serious dangers  which mankind is facing.

Into Eternity, directed by Michael Madsen is, by far, one of the most anticipated documentaries at TIFF 2011, and it will be screened starting 1.00 p.m., at Cinema Victoria. Winner of the Green Award at Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival, it presents the solution adopted by Finland for dealing with nuclear waste by building a waste repository called 'Onkalo'. Experts are trying to find a solution for this waste not to become a threat to mankind.

The screening will be followed by Q&A's and debates on the safe disposal of nuclear waste, starting from the solution adopted by Finland. The panel will take place at TIFF Lounge in Unirii Square, at 2.30 p.m., with the participation of Michael Madsen, the director of the film, Ion Năstăsescu - President of Nuclear Agency & Radioactive Waste, Adrian Jelev - Chief of Nuclear Security at Nuclearelectrica SA, as well as of representatives from local NGOs and institutions involved in green campaigns and Ioana Ciuta – Executiv Director of Tera Mileniul III association.

Innocent Saturday (d. Aleksandr Mindadze) is another title included in this year's ecoTIFF programme, being at the same time selected in the festival's Official Competition. Winner of the Label Europa Cinemas award in 2011 at Berlin Film Festival, the film takes place in April 1986, when a reactor of the nuclear plant in Chernobyl exploded. A group of friends and band mates try to escape the Chernobyl disaster, but a series of unforeseen events hinder their plans.

In addition, at Cinema Arta, at 10.00 a.m., director Coline Serreau denounces, in her documentary film Solutions Locales Pour Un Désordre Global, an agricultural system perverted by financial imperatives, and at the same time invites the viewers to discover new and successful production systems and techniques which will, besides bringing richer crops, offer a better and healthier life to the communities.

Also on June 5^th, the public in Cluj is invited at TIFF Café Point - Klausenburg Café, for the second panel of the World Environment Day, focused on Volunteering as alternative solution for environment issues, presented by Holcim and Someș Waterworks.

The first weekend of the anniversary edition of TIFF promises to present its public with a large variety of special events: 3D screenings, concerts, all genres of films, meetings with iconic guests.

Saturday, June 4, 7 p.m., at the Ethnographic Museum, SoNoRo starts the series of TIFF 2011 concerts with Songs and Dances of Life. A musical project inspired by the very roots of the multi-cultural area of Transylvania, cohabitation region for Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, Slovaks and Ukrainians, Songs and Dances of Life is, in the words of the musicians themselves, „a mixture of harvesting songs and enrolment dances with carols and religious hymns, of ballads with tunes of yearning”, which includes exceptional pieces, such as works by Franz Liszt, a Slovak song, a dizzying Ruthenian dance or the fragile Hungarian melody by Franz Schubert.

Thought of and created as a celebration of Transylvanian cultural identity, dedicated to the audience in Cluj, Songs and Dances of Life throws fresh light on creations signed by music personalities particularly connected to the history and tradition of Cluj, thus building an atemporal musical dialogue between currents, nations and styles.

Mara Dobrescu (piano), Cristian Nas (viola), Răzvan Popovici (viola) and Andu Dumitrescu (VJ) will greet the public with works by Béla Bartók, Franz Schubert, George Enescu, Franz Liszt, Léos Janacék, György Ligeti.

During the starting weekend of the festival, Florin Piersic Cinema will host the first 3D screenings in the history of TIFF, with two stunning art-house documentaries, signed by iconic figures of German cinema: Pina (Germany-France, 2011), directed by Wim Wenders, one of the most hyped films at this year’s edition of Berlin Film Festival, screened of June 4, at 8.30 p.m., and the Cave of Forgotten Dreams (USA-France, 2010), which will be screened on Sunday, June 5, at 10.30 p.m. - by Werner Herzog, featured in the 3x3 section.

The Theatre at TIFF series of performances, which starts on the first festival evening will continue on Saturday, June 4, 8.00 p.m., at Libertatea Factory, with Shoah. The Survival, by Andreea Iacob - a multi-media theatre installation. Inspired by Ioana Cosman's “Depositions on life and death. Holocaust in Northern Transylvania” and “Shoah in Northern Transylvania”, Shoah. The Survival, a visual and theatrical essay, which is inspired by the stories of the Holocaust survivors in Northern Transylvania. Using these stories as a starting point, Andreea Iacob creates a series of theatrical installations on survival, on us, on the others and us.

Sunday, June 5, 8.00, at the Hungarian Theatre, the public in Cluj is invited to see Saviana Stănescu’s play, Polanski, Polanski, which attracts the attention of both theatre lovers, and film buffs. Polanski, Polanski explores the psychic and emotional turmoil of the famous film director Roman Polanski, by showing three crucial moments of his life: desire, escape, punishment. This sur-corporal multimedia exploration, played by Grant Neale, comprises both cinema and theatre aspects and combines the genres of psychological theatre with monologue.

On June 5, with the occasion of World Environment Day, TIFF thinks green. The ecoTIFF project includes the screening of three films that raise questions on the causes that contribute to the destruction of the planet and to the serious dangers that mankind is facing.

At TIFF 2011, June 5 is also declared Diversity Day. A day that brings a series of screenings and events at the same time diverse and compelling.

On June 5, the audience will have a full day. Diversity Day brings to TIFF 2011 a series of events at the same time varied and compelling.

Starting 2.00 p.m. The Art Museum Gallery will host the screening of The Corlat Valley / Valea Corlătului (d. Stephane Lucon). Presented during the Human Rights Documentary Film Festival One World Romania, the film describes the surreal situation of a Roma community living at the border separating the counties of Brașov and Covasna. A narrow valley crowded with houses makes up a village that doesn’t exist on any map, a nameless village that is refused its right to identity. Because most of the inhabitants are Roma, the place is called „the gipsy hood”.

The Art Museum Gallery will also screen two films that depict the experiences and memories of the Jewish and Roma people after being deported from Romania and Transnistria during the Second World War: Say Kadish and leave / Să spui Kaddiş şi să pleci by Zoltan Terner, scheduled for 3.00 p.m., Romany Tears / Romane Iasfa, by Luminiţa Cioabă, screened starting 3.40 p.m.

Romany Tears / Romane Iasfa is one of the two documentaries directed by Luminiţa Cioabă on the tragedy of the deportation of Roma people in Transnistria. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers.

Starting 5.20 p.m., film lovers will be able to see The source - One day in a Roma Settlement in Romania / Izvorul – O zi într-o comunitate de romi din România, by Dutch director Jaap de Ruig. The entrance is free, and the screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers.

6.30 p.m. has reserved another original film for the public’s attention: Balkan’s Digest / Almanah balcanic (d. Ionuţ Piţurescu). The film tells the story of Balkan diversity, of a man who refuses to surrender and of a culture that won’t give up it’s right to exist. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers.

The access for all Diversity Day screenings at The Art Museum Gallery is free.

Starting 8.00 p.m., Florin Piersic Cinema will screen the documentary film Our School / Școala noastră, Mona Nicoară and Miruna Coca-Cozma’s feature film debut. The film centers on three Roma kids – Alin, Beniamin şi Dana – who try to overcome the division imposed by belonging to a different ethnicity. The shooting spanned over 4 years, following the evolution of each of the three protagonists and the ways in which they are willing to integrate in a society unwilling to accept them. The film starts in 2006, when the children are being transferred from a school at the outskirts of Târgu Lăpuș to a downtown one. They will have to have to face prejudices coming both from their teachers and their classmates. Both film directors will be present at the screening.

In addition to these special screenings, Diversity Day will be animated by two intense concerts. At 9.30 p.m., on the TIFF Meeting Point stage in the courtyard of the National Art Museum, Biokolective Swing and Balkan Morgana bands will sign an intercultural fusion mix, designing a memorable sound and movement show.

Diversity Day ends with a sensational concert - Baba Zula and Nightlosers, at 11.00 p.m., at Euphoria Music Hall.

Baba Zula shows, held on hundreds of stages around the world, offer a complete audio-visual experience, with performances held in extravagant outfits accompanied by belly dancing, theatre, poetry and live VJ-ing. Their Dub Oriental sound is the result of a mixture of traditional instruments with electro and reggae music. Despite its completely exotic appearance, Baba Zula music has roots both in oriental traditions, and in the meaning and sonority of '60s rock'n'roll. Due to their extremely well defined style, they were included in Fatih Akin's documentary Crossing the Bridge (2005), an overview of the most important Turkish contemporary music trends.

The Transylvanian blues band Nightlosers combines the themes and sounds of Transylvanian traditional music with the American ones. Three studio albums, but also hundreds of concerts in Romania and abroad, have established them as one of the most original Romanian bands of the last two decades, whose media include the violin, electric guitar, drums, but also the harmonica or the washboard.

Entertainment, magic, passion... these were the prevailing emotions shared by those who decided to celebrate the Official Opening of the tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival in the Unirii Square.

Over 2000 people were present at the screening that inaugurated the festival’s anniversary edition, in Cluj-Napoca’s most spectacular venue: Ursus Open Air.

The host of the opening gala, Tudor Giurgiu – president and founder of TIFF, wanted to thank everyone who has helped the festival to reach its tenth edition, inviting on stage the most loyal members of TIFF staff, from the first edition until now, people whose devotion and involvement throughout these nine years were rewarded with the Diploma for Supporting Transilvania International Film Festival – 2002-2011.

Mihai Chirilov, the festival’s Artistic Director, shared with the public in Unirii Square a key-moment in the birth of TIFF: the way in which an extremely daring idea became the most important Romanian film event and already a respected festival on the international and European scene. “In September 2001, Tudor Giurgiu invited me to get a beer at the Everest terrase downtown Bucharest, where he told me about a project: TIFF. I never imagined then that, nine years later, TIFF would become an Everest of film events in Romania”, added the film critic.

The Opening Gala of tenth edition of TIFF dedicated a special moment to film critic Alex. Leo Şerban. ALŞ passed away at the beginning of April. Tonight, the festival team missed one of the closest friends of the festival, a valuable supporter ever since its first edition. Together with film director and producer Bobby Păunescu, the President of TIFF announced the launch of a scholarship bearing the name of Alex. Leo Șerban. Thus, a young filmmaker’s project in development will have the chance to be improved and supported through a scholarship at Columbia University in New York. Alex. Leo Șerban was one of the most active promoters of the Romanian New Wave, locally and abroad.

An electrifying performance, full of magic and light, perfectly complimented TIFF’s opening evening. Herbert’s Dream, by the renowned French street art ensemble Compagnie des Quidams, took away the breath of the entire audience that packed Cluj’s biggest square. The ritual performed by the five characters belonging to the cosmic space, in their attempt to help a star ascend to heavens, amazed the breathless audience who witnessed the show completely captivated.

The opening gala was available online, at www.tifftv.ro, the festival’s video platform, where TIFF fans can find material on this year’s programme, restrospective, official spots and making of’s, witnessing in real time the most important TIFF 2011 events.

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Video

The big day has arrived.  Today, June 3, Unirii Square will host the opening ceremony of the festival, which will be followed by the screening of Potiche (d. Francois Ozon).

The TIFF 2011 opening ceremony will not lack important names, personalities from Romanian and international film industry, officials and representatives of foreign press. Directors Matias Bize (La vida de los pesces), Michael Madsen (Into Eternity), Fernando Léon de Aranoa (Amador), Miruna Coca-Cozma (Our School) are some of the special guests present, alongside Tudor Giurgiu - Festival President, host of the TIFF opening ceremony, Mihai Chirilov - TIFF’s Artistic Director and Sorin Apostu - Cluj-Napoca’s mayor.

While expecting tonight’s official opening, TIFF would like to welcome the public already present at the screenings that have started the 10-day film marathon that is Transilvania Film Festival.

Principii de Viața / Principles of Life

Being presented in the official competition, Constantin Popescu’s film is terribly, terribly earnest. Just think about the pretentious title: there’s no irony here, but neither is there any edification. Luckily it has Vlad Ivanov, in his first feature-length starring role, though the actor is made to impersonate a ridiculous character and while Ivanov’s vanity-free performance – do we really need to watch him dancing around in a towel and putting on his underwear? – is presumably what the role required, at the same time there’s the distinct sensation that Popescu doesn’t respect his characters. Reading the press notes might make one expect the film to be saying something very profound about the masculine ego, or about the accumulation of a tiny bit of power and how it’s tyrannically wielded. Yet the only emotion that comes across is tedium, and the sense that Ivanov’s character is really far less monstrous than Popescu, and possibly Rǎdulescu, want us to think. The frustrations of a small-scale control freak over the course of 24 hours is not made incisive by Rǎdulescu’s directionless script, and the climactic eruption at the end is no pay-off. What precisely are they wanting to say here? It’s beginning to feel like both director and screenwriter have been over-influenced by reality TV shows, whose banal participants are hoisted on the dubious and ephemeral flagpole of fame by powerful media magnates in search of the lowest common denominator.

Periferic / Outbound

Bogdan George Apetri’s Periferic, presented in Locarno’s main competition, showcases elements now commonly thought of as “Romanian.” Based on a story written about a decade ago by Ioana Uricaru and Cristian Mungiu, the movie is at its best in the small, seemingly everyday exchanges between people – scenes between Andi Vasluianu, Ioana Flora, and star Ana Ularu are especially good for the tensions they reveal combined with a primal familiarity that supersedes temporary sibling estrangement. Calling the truck driver/smuggler Virgil is pushing the symbolism too far, and the film isn’t perfect, but it was a worthy entry on the 2010 panorama. Marius Panduru’s restrained, observant camera has become a hallmark of the new cinema, but frankly I’ve gotten tired of sequences where the camera trails closely behind the actors, mere centimetres from their shoulders, as we follow the backs of actors’ heads. Romanian cinema is certainly not alone in this, but the device is overused and ultimately adds little other than an appreciation for someone’s neck muscles and hair conditioner (or lack thereof).

Jay Weissberg, for AperiTIFF 2011

The tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival is ready to welcome its guests and audience, with only one day left before the start of the most anticipated Romanian film event. In addition to the 200 films, TIFF 2011 presents its public with a generous offer of special events: the concerts, exhibitions and theatre performances are only some of the events that make this year’s edition an unmissable one.

For the second consecutive year, Unirii Square will host the opening ceremony of the festival, which will take place on Friday, June 3, from 8.30 p.m.  Starting this evening, the heart of Cluj will undergo an impressive transformation, turning into a spectacular TIFF open-air venue.

This year, the opening ceremony has set an impressive surprise in store for the public in Cluj. The French group of artists from the famous Compagnie des Quidams will bring to Ursus Open Air a performance full of magic and light: Herbert’s Dream. The show’s protagonists are extraordinary characters which evolve, depending on theatrical situations. From long, white figures on stilts, the audience will discover creatures from a strange, transforming world. Deformed and grandiose at the same time, clumsy and ethereal, as coming from another planet, with their heads light up they gather round a brilliant star to perform a magic ritual which will help the star ascend to heavens. The show was performed in over 100 cities, on several continents. Moreover, it opened various international events, such as the Dance Biennale in Lyon, the 1998 Football World Cup, Euro 2000 and Euro 2004.

The film opening the festival’s anniversary edition is Potiche, an entertaining comedy written and directed by Francois Ozon, one of the best-rated French directors at this time. The film is an adaptation of the eponymous theatre play by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy, and had its world premiere in the official competition of Venice Film Festival 2010. A contemporary social satire, the film is set in the context of the economic crisis afflicting the entire world. The action centers on Robert Pujol, the tyrannical head of the umbrella factory he has inherited from his father-in-law. The inhumane work conditions determine the workers to go on strike, ending with Robert being taken hostage. Suzanne, his wife, steps in and, with the help of her ex lover and present town mayor, tries to free the hostage and end the protest. In the end, Suzanne will take the reins of the factory, managing to restore an almost bankrupt business, to the great surprise of her husband, who is not willing to give up his position as factory director. Francois Ozon brings together a stellar cast, with some of the most important names from French cinema: Catherine Deneuve, recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award offered to an Outstanding Personality of the European Cinema at TIFF 2008, Gérard Depardieu and Fabrice Luchini.

The TIFF 2011 opening ceremony will not lack important names, personalities from Romanian and international film industry, officials and representatives of foreign press.

Directors Matias Bize (La vida de los pesces), Michael Madsen (Into Eternity), Fernando Léon de Aranoa (Amador), Miruna Coca-Cozma (Our School) are some of the special guests present, alongside Tudor Giurgiu – Festival President, host of the TIFF opening ceremony, Mihai Chirilov –TIFF’s Artistic Director and Sorin Apostu – Cluj-Napoca’s mayor.

The male basketball team U Mobitelco BT Cluj, winner of the National Basketball Championship, will also be present at the event.

The theatre performance series Theatre at TIFF starts on Friday, June 3, with the play 9 degrees in Paris, by Peter Kerek, which will be played at the Hungarian Theater starting 7.30 p.m.

TIFFashion, the series of events meant to connect the two worlds of film and fashion, also starts at Hotel Continental – the new home of fashion dedicated events, with the exhibit Dressing the Story: Film & Theatre Costumes by Doina Levintza, which can be admired until June 9.

The first day of the festival is also the first day of screenings at Mănăştur Open Air, a new festival venue, which invites the public living in Mănăștur district, on every TIFF evening. The access to all screenings at Mănăştur Open Air is free. 

One of the best known Italian actors and directors – Michele Placido, famous for playing Corrado Cattani in the TV series La Piovra / The Octopus, is one of the most important guests of the anniversay edition of Transilvania International Film Festival.

Michele Placido will be present in Cluj-Napoca on Saturday evening, June 4, for the screening of his most important title as film director, – Vallanzasca - Angels of Evil / Vallanzasca – Gli Angeli del Male. The audience in Cluj will be able to meet Placido at Ursus Open Air - Piaţa Unirii, both at the start of the film, at 9.45 p.m., and after the screening, during a Q&A session moderated by Mihai Chirilov, the Artistic Director of the festival. Alongside Michele Placido, actress Monica Bîrlădeanu, one of the film's leading actresses, will also attend the Saturday evening screening. On the Ursus Open Air stage, Monica Bîrlădeanu will present the Italian actor with the TIFF Lifetime Achievement Award offered to an Outstanding Personality of the European Cinema.

The public and accredited press at TIFF 2011 will also be able to meet Michele Placido during an informal get-together, followed by an autograph signing session, on Sunday, June 5, 12.30 at TIFF Lounge in Unirii Square.

Michele Placido was born in 1946. He studied acting at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome and at The Academy of Dramatic Arts. He made his debut as an actor in the play Midsummer's Night Dream in 1969. Two years later he started film work under directors such as Luigi Comencini, Mario Monicelli, Salvatore Samperi, Damiano Damiani, Francesco Rosi, Walerian Borowczyk, Marco Bellocchio and Carlo Lizzani. His first success came with the role of soldier Paolo Passeri in Marcia trionfale (1976, directed by Marco Bellocchio), for which he won a David di Donatello – the Italian film industry awards.

Two years later, Michele Placido won the Silver Bear for Best Actor award at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival for his role of the homosexual worker in ironical melodrama Ernesto (1978). He appeared in several TV movies in 1970s, but 1983 marked the beginning of his greatest television popularity when he played the lead as police investigator Corrado Cattani in the La Piovra series.

The action in Vallanzasca - Angels of Evil, the most recent film he directed, takes place in Italy, in the 1970s. A criminal by age 9, Renato Vallanzasca would grow up to become the country’s most notorious mobster before the age of 27. While Vallanzasca lived by his own professional code of honor – he claimed that he never ‘shot anyone in the back’ – he and his gang took out their enemies and wrested control of the Milan underworld with a string of robberies, kidnappings and murders. Arrested multiple times, his daring escapes from prison enraged the government, angered his rivals and fed his legend. The film received a warm welcome at Venice Film Festival in 2010.

On every festival day, starting 5 p.m., film lovers and festival fans are invited to a special meeting with one of the TIFF guests.

The now traditional TIFF Lounge meetings have always represented an excellent opportunity for the festival audience to converse with personalities they love and admire. During the previous years, TIFF lounge has hosted guests such as Victor Rebengiuc, Anamaria Marinca, Mircea Albulescu, Maia Morgenstern, Florin Piersic Jr, Corneliu Porumboiu ad many others.

This year, TIFF lounge is moving to a new venue. Unirii Square becomes the new home for the 5 o’clock meetings.

SATURDAY, JUNE 4

 Mihai Chirilov – TIFF’s Artistic Director

SUNDAY, JUNE 5

 Fernando Léon de Aranoa – Spanish film director, present in the 3X3 section

MONDAY, JUNE 6

Paul Ipate & Ioana Blaj – leading actors in Autobahn, heroes in the Maximia commercial campaign

TUESDAY, JUNE 7

Radu Muntean – film director, member of the TIFF 2011 Official Competition jury

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8

Vlad Ivanov – leading actor in Principles of Life

THURSDAY, JUNE 9

Dragoş Bucur – leading actor The Way Back

FRIDAY, JUNE 10

Luminiţa Gheorghiu – actress, Stuff and Dough

SATURDAY, JUNE 11

Marcel Iureş – leading actor in Phantom Father 

TIFFashion, the series of events meant to connect the two worlds of film and fashion, returns to TIFF’s special events programme. This year, Hotel Continental in Unirii Square will host all TIFFFashion events, the hotel being one of the landmarks of Cluj, closed down for several years and included in the town’s cultural circuit by Transilvania International Film Festival.

During June 3-9, within the Dressing the Story: Film & Theatre Costumes by Doina Levintza, exhibit, the public will be able to admire some of the best Romanian theatre and film costumes. One the most famous Romanian fashion designers brings to TIFF and one of a kind exhibit: the viewers can admire in Cluj the Gopo 2009 award-winning costumes from The Rest is Silence (d. Nae Caranfil), together with costumes from other Romanian public faves: Why are the Bells Tolling, Mitica? (d. Lucian Pintilie), The Prophet, the Gold and the Transylvanians (d. Dan Pița), Beyond the Sands (d. Radu Gabrea), The Last Night of Love (d. Sergiu Nicolaescu). The costumes designed by Levintza for theatre plays such as Richard III (d. Mihai Mănuțiu), The Portrait of Dorian Gray (d. Dragoș Galgoțiu) or Hic sunt leones (d. Dan Puric) can also be admired within the same exhibition.

Another exceptional exhibition organized at TIFF will put under fresh perspective some of the classic films of Romanian cinema. One of the most active authors of film posters in Romania before 1989, graphic designer Klára Tamás, returns to Cluj-Napoca to present to the Romanian public an impressive collection of posters made for local productions which were distributed in Romania and abroad throughout the Golden Age. Christopher Landry's renowned album, The Silver Screen in the Golden Age. Romanian Film Posters between 1965 and 1989 will also be officially launched in Cluj-Napoca during the opening of the exhibition. The Romanian Film Posters by Klára Tamás will be opened between June 3-9.

In addition at TIFFashion, during the same period, the public will be able to see some of best visuals designed by students from the Art and Design University in Cluj-Napoca and proposed as promotional merchandise for TIFF’s anniversary edition. These will be exhibited together with original materials from the festival’s archive: the viewers will admire, for the first time, the various visual drafts rejected at the previous editions, and wonder “what if” the TIFF posters wouldn’t have included famous local lines from classics such as Brokeback Mountain, The Postman Always Rings Twice or E.T..

One of the three directors presented in the traditional section 3 X 3 – Spanish filmmaker Fernando Léon de Aranoa comes Cluj.

Aranoa is one of the special guests of the tenth edition of TIFF.

Born in Madrid, in 1968, Aranoa has become one of the most valued Spanish film directors, with award-winning films present in festivals all around the world, being one of the favorites at the Goya Awards.

Aranoa had his debut in 1994 with the short film Sirenas. His feature film debut was in 1996, with Family, with a script also signed by him. The script was later on turned into a theatre play, performed in several countries. Aranoa won with this film the Goya Award for Best New Director.

In 1998, he wrote and directed Barrio, which brought him two Goya awards, for Best Director and Best Original Script, along with many other awards at renowned film festivals.

In 2002, he directed Los Lunes Al Sol / Mondays in the Sun, starring Javier Bardem in one of the leading parts, main winner at that year's edition of the Goyas, with 5 awards, including those for Best Film and Best Director.

His forth feature, Princesas / Princesses, made in 2005, represents his debut as producer with his own production company -  Reposado. Another Goya favorite, Princesas won awards for each of the leading actresses and for Manu Chao for the song he composed for the film's soundtrack. The film was also presented at Sundance Film Festival.

His 2002 documentary, Walking brought him a new series of awards, at film festivals in Havana, Los Angeles, New York. In 2007 he directed the Good Night, Ouma segment of the Invisibles, a series of short films made by directors such as Mariano Barroso, Isabel Coixet, Wim Wenders and Javier Corcuera, winner of the Goya award for Best Documentary.

At TIFF 2011, alongside the German film director Werner Herzog and Belgian filmmaker Jaco Van Dormael, Aranoa is presented within the 3 X 3 section with three representative films.

Los Lunes al Sol / Mondays in the Sun is a touching drama about a group of working-class men who find themselves suddenly unemployed and unwanted in their middle age. Laid off from the local shipyard, the men spend their days at the town bar, where they reminisce, philosophize, and commiserate about their current state. Gruff Santa puts up a tough front, refusing to sink into self-pity, and occasionally pricking his friends' hopes. Morose José openly worries about his wife, whom he fears might leave him. That seems to have been the fate of Amador, the oldest of the bunch, who keeps reassuring everyone that his wife will be back any day now from her trip... The film won the  Golden Seashell for Best Film, the FIPRESCI Award, SIGNIS Award and CEC Award at San Sebastian 2002, Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Javier Bardem), Best Supporting Actor (Luis Tosar) at the Goya Awards 2003.

Amador, Aranoa's most recent film, from 2010, tells the story of Marcela, a young woman in financial straits. She is delighted when she finds a new job: she is to spend the summer looking after an old, bedridden man named Amador and keep him company every day as long as his relatives are on holiday. Marcela and Amador are soon sharing all sorts of secrets, including the fact that Marcela is pregnant. The relationship that evolves between them from now on may well stem from this proximity between life and death, but then, one day, Amador dies. His death makes Marcela unemployed and puts the young woman in a quandary. But she finds a way out of her moral dilemma. Together with Amador, Marcela will prove that death doesn’t necessarily put an end to life. The film was presented at Berlin Film Festival in 2011.

Familia / Family, Aranoa's film from 1996, brought him the Best New Director award,the  Audience Award and the FIPRESCI Special Mention at Valladolid Film Festival in 1996. The films centers on Santiago, who one morning gets out of bed and his entire family is waiting for him in the kitchen, singing Happy Birthday to him when he shows up, kiss him, give him presents, hug him. But Santiago doesn’t like his young son’s gift and he doesn’t believe the boy when he says he loves him, and for that, just for that, shouts at him, throws him out, gets angry with everyone else and demands a better son, one who doesn’t wear glasses, who isn´t so fat and who, if posible, looks a bit like him. Who hasn’t dreamed some time of having a custom-made family?

The 3 X 3 section is presented by Cinemax.

This year, Cinema Florin Piersic will also host the first 3D screenings in the history of TIFF, with two stunning art-house documentaries, signed by iconic figures of German cinema: Pina (Germany-France, 2011), directed by Wim Wenders, one of the most hyped films at this year’s edition of Berlin Film Festival, screened of June 4, at 8.30 p.m., and the Cave of Forgotten Dreams (USA-France, 2010), which will be screened on Sunday, June 5, at 10.30 p.m. - by Werner Herzog, the focus of one of the portraits in the 3x3 section.

Pina

 By: Wim Wenders

 Saturady, June 4, 20.30

 Cinema Florin Piersic

The most recent film and, at the same time, the first 3D feature signed by Wim Wenders, one of the most hyped productions at the 2011 edition of the Berlin Film Festival, where it was screened in the Official Selection - Out of Competition.

In the words of the very director who received the Lifetime Achievement Award offered to a European film personality at TIFF 2010, „Pina is a film for Pina Bausch”, one of the most important choreographers of the last decades, and a good friend of Wim Wenders.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

By: Werner Herzog

Sunday, June 5, 22.30

Cinema Florin Piersic

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind in their astonishing natural setting. He puts 3D technology to a profound use, taking us back in time over 30,000 years.  The film was successfully presented at Berlin and Toronto Film Festivals.

Observation

Masterclass on Stereoscopic filmmaking in the digital age

Held by Wolf Bosse

Sunday, June 5, 11.00

Cinema Florin Piersic

The audience fascinated by 3D filmmaking can find out more details on this type of cinema during a presentation on stereoscopic shooting techniques, held by Wolf Bosse - General Manager at Das Werk company.

The presentation focuses on the 2010 shoot for Pina, with examples from the film. 

At the anniversary edition of Transilvania International Film Festival, the SoNoRo Festival from Bucharest, one of the most original classic music projects in Central and Eastern Europe, brings to TIFF an entirely unique concert: Songs and Dances of Life, scheduled on Saturday, June 4, from 7 p.m., at the Ethnographic Museum in Cluj-Napoca, the place where Franz Liszt played when in town in 1846.

A musical project inspired by the very roots of the multi-cultural area of Transylvania, cohabitation region for Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, Slovaks and Ukrainians, Songs and Dances of Life is, in the words of the musicians themselves, „a mixture of harvesting songs and enrolment dances with carols and religious hymns, of ballads with tunes of yearning”, which includes exceptional pieces, such as works by Franz Liszt, a Slovak song, a dizzying Ruthenian dance or the fragile Hungarian melody by Franz Schibert.

Thought of and created as a celebration of Transylvanian cultural identity, dedicated to the audience in Cluj, Songs and Dances of Life throws fresh light on creations signed by music personalities extremely connected to the history and tradition of Cluj, thus building an atemporal musical dialogue between currents, nations and styles.

Ticket for SoNoRo Concert: 15 lei

Four more days until the start of the most important film event in Romania: Transilvania International Film Festival. A uniquely tempting offer for the lovers of the seventh art and not only, including event screenings, theatre shows, spectacular concerts and many more cultural surprises.

Throughout the nine editions of TIFF, the festival has granted special attention to masterclasses and workshops on various subjects, held by film professionals from international and Romanian industry, who shared their experience with the audience.

At the festival’s anniversary edition, on Saturday, June 4, 8.30 p.m. at Cinema Florin Piersic, film lovers are invited to see the first 3D screening in the history of TIFF: Pina (d. Wim Wenders).

The viewers fascinated by Wenders’ latest production and by 3D filmmaking are invited on Sunday, June 5, 11.00 a.m., at Cinema Florin Piersic at the masterclass on: Stereoscopic filmmaking in the digital age, held by Wolf Bosse - general manager at Das Werk. The masterclass will include an introduction into the history of stereo-3d, as well a presentation about the Pina shoot and aspects of the digital postproduction.

On June 10, film industry professionals, but also those who are active in the fields of Marketing, Public Relations, Sales, interested in how to promptly and efficiently promote a «product» by using the internet, have now the chance to discover the secrets of online social platforms. The most appreciated expert at this time in the fields of films distribution and marketing, Thomas Mai, will hold a workshop dedicated to Crowdfunding, Social Media and Distribution 2.0 on Friday, June 10, between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., BNR hall (Unirii Square 7, BNR headquarters, Cluj branch). For 7 hours, based on an intensive work-plan, the participants of the workshop will be able to discover and understand the way in which social media can help in getting the financial support for a film production, as well as in distributing and selling films.

Also un June 10, at TIFF Lounge in Unirii Square, starting at 3 p.m., Iceland-born director Valdis Óskarsdóttir, present in the TIFF 2011 Official Competition with King’ Road and winner of a BAFTA award for Best editing for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, will share with the audience the way in which you can successfully combine film directing and editing.

Last, but not least, the renowned Romanian-born French producer Marin Karmitz, founder of the production and distribution company MK2, will be celebrated at TIFF 2011 through a Special Award. The producer of Certified Copy (d. Abbas Kiarostami), which will be screened during the tenth edition of TIFF, will host a masterclass sharing secrets on film production on June 11, 12.00, at TIFF Lounge in Unirii Square.

With the exception of Thomas Mai’s workshop, for which tickets have to be bought, the access for all the other masterclasses available at TIFF 2011 is free of charge and based upon seats availability.

For more details on applying for the workshop held by Thomas Mai, please see http://www.tiff.ro/stire/workshop-de-neratat-la-tiff-2011-sustinut-de-thomas-mai/151.

The tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival invites the audience in Cluj to see, in addition to the impressive number of high-quality films, various concerts and unmissable exhibitions, a series of theatre shows under the title Theatre at TIFF.

Directors, actors and plays by important playwrights will give a series of performances whose themes and mise en scène intermingle with seventh art.

The event-show of this theatre programme is represented by Autobahn, by Neil LaBute. Between June 6-10, the audience in Cluj will have the possibility to experiment a completely exceptional theatre show. The actress and director Mihaela Sârbu challenges you, through Autobahn, to a different kind of theatrical experience. A play in a car, a genuine theatrical road-movie. More than staging a play, an artistic and socio-cultural experiment. A funny and voyeuristic journey by car, accelerated by unsettling dramas and dark comedy moments. A break from the usual dramatic convention that all theatre shows entail. Starting on June 6, for 5 consecutive evenings, the 6 cars in which Neil LaBute's one-act plays take place will leave at 9.30 p.m. from the parking lot in from of the Hungarian Theatre heading towards various locations in Cluj. Each car accommodates 3 spectators, witnesses of the story unfolding between the two protagonists in the front seats. You can be one of the 90 spectators who will have the chance to experiment a whole new approach to a theatre play. All in all, what can be more appropriate then to shut yourself in a car in order to force a discussion or to make silence seem tangible? This situation has been widely used in film, but playwright Neil LaBute is maybe the first one to transform this situation in a theatrical event.

In 9 degrees in Paris, director Peter Kerek tries to answer the question: “How much film can theatre take, and vice-versa?”, mixing in a coherent way theatre with film - the theatrical monologue with video recording. Actress Alina Berzunţeanu gives a phenomenal one-woman show, playing a 30-something year old woman who, one evening, a few days before Christmas, is getting ready to leave her family for good - her husband and her 5-year old boy. The show is scheduled on the first day of TIFF, on June 3, at 7.00 p.m., at the Hungarian Theatre.

On the second day of the festival, June 4, at 8.00 p.m. at Libertatea Plant, within the Theatre at TIFF programme, the public is invited at Shoah. The Survival, by Andreea Iacob - a multi-media theatre installation. Inspired by Ioana Cosman's “Depositions on life and death. Holocaust in Northern Transylvania” and “Shoah in Northern Transylvania”, Shoah. The Survival is a visual and theatrical essay, which is inspired by the stories of the Holocaust survivors in Northern Transylvania. Using these stories as a starting point, Andreea Iacob created a series of theatrical installations on survival, on us, on us and the others.

Saviana Stănescu's play, Polanski, Polanski attracts the attention of both theatre lovers, and film buffs. Polanski, Polanski explores the psychic and emotional turmoil of the famous film director Roman Polanski, by showing three crucial moments of his life: desire, escape, punishment. This sur-corporal multimedia exploration, played by Grant Neale, comprises both cinema and theatre aspects and combines the genres of psychological theatre with monologue. The performance will be played on June 5, at 8.00 p.m., at the Hungarian Theatre.

Ich Clown, by Vera Ion and Sorin Poama, starts from the authors' personal experience, the moment when they decided to leave Romania. Adi is a young Romanian actor, with no job, money or future plans. After his girlfriend dumps him, Adi decides to do something to change his life. Together with his friends, William and Dragoș, he plans to see Europe, all three dressed as clown. Ich Clown will play on June 6, at 8.00 p.m., at the Hungarian Theatre.

The forth show hosted by the Hungarian Theatre is Roșia Montană - on the physical and political border, by Ștefan Peca, Gianina Cărbunariu and Andreea Vălean. Declared “the best show” at the Romanian Dramaturgy Festival (FDR) in Timișoara, Roșia Montană is an ample discussion on the world we live in, on the subject of morality in contemporary society, on the polarization of this society on one sigle subject, on the way in which mass-media chooses to reflect (or not) this phenomenon, on poverty, vulnerability and searching for solutions to solve this state of things. The show can be seen on June 7, at 7.00 p.m.

The seventh show included in the theatre programme at TIFF 2011 is Mine Flowers, by Székely Csaba. The story takes pace in a mining village in Transylvania, which attracts public attention through a specific peculiarity: an inflow of suicides, apparently unexplained. Singling out an episode in the life of a few of the villagers, the show brings off a staggering analysis of the functioning mechanism of small, rural communities, shattering any possible idyllic image on peaceful country life. The frustration of a failed life is staged in an insanely comical style, with strong characters and subtle, perfectly balanced direction. Mine Flowers will be played at Fabrica de Pensule on June 11, at 8.30 p.m.

The tickets for Autobahn, Mine Flowers and Shoah. The survival can be found at TIFF Ticketing Points, starting May 30. The price of a ticket is 15 RON, with the exception of Autobahn, which costs 70 RON. The tickets for Roșia Montană - on the physical and political border, Ich Clown, Polanski, Polanski and 9 Degrees in Paris can be found at the Hungarian Theatre box-office.

The tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) is on its marks. During the ten days, between June 3 -12, Cluj-Napoca will welcome over 700 Romanian and foreign guests and 220 feature and short films. This year as well, TIFF promises a true cultural feast, which will not be short of special screenings, national, international and world premieres, or workshops and master-classes held by important guests from film industry, music and theatre shows, exhibitions, book, DVD and magazine launches.

Part of - starting with the 2011 edition - the elite club of festivals accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers’ Associations (FIAPF), endorsement which places it among the 40 most important festivals in the world, this year too TIFF will enjoy the presence of renowned guests. The great British actress Jacqueline Bisset will be awarded the Special Prize for Contribution to World Cinema, for a career that spans over 85 roles in film and TV productions, Golden Globes, Emmy and César Awards nominations. The festival audience will be able to see Bisset in flesh and blood, but also on the big screen, in a memorable role, during the special screening of La Cérémonie (France-Germany, 1995), film directed by Claude Chabrol, which brought her a nomination for the César Awards, scheduled on Saturday, June 11, at 6 p.m., at Cinema Florin Piersic.

Another great British actor, Michael York, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award Offered to an Outstanding Personality of the European Cinema. In his honour, on Thursday, June 9, from 9.30 p.m., at the Students' Cultural Center, TIFF will screen the most important title in York's career: Cabaret (d. Bob Fosse, 1971), a film presented by the Romanian Cinemateque.

Marin Karmitz, the legendary Romanian-born French producer, founder of the production, distribution and exhibition company MK2, returning to Romania for the first time since he left the country in the 40s, and cameraman and producer Oleg Mutu, responsible for the photography in The Death of Mr.Lazarescu, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Tales from the Golden Age and My Joy, will be the recipients of Special Awards of the 10^th Transilvania IFF. In honour of Marin Karmitz, TIFF brings to Cluj Certified Copy (d. Abbas Kiarostami, France, 2010), screened on Friday, June 10, from 10.00 p.m., at Cinema Victoria, while Oleg Mutu will take part, on Sunday, June 5, starting 9.30 p.m., at the screening of Innocent Saturday (d. Alexander Mindadze, Russia-Germany-Ukraine, 2011), with photography signed by him.

The four of them - together will all the other winners of TIFF 2011 awards - will receive their trophies on the Closing Gala stage of the festival, scheduled Saturday, June 11, from 8.30, at the National Theatre and broadcasted live on www.tiff.ro, but also on the biggest media facade in Romania - Cocor Media Channel, located in downtown Bucharest. The 2011 TIFF Gala can be watched on TVR 1, Sunday, June 12, between 3.p.m and 7 p.m. TIFF TV, the festival's video platform, launched this year, will thus top a 10-day programme, during which it will offer TIFF fans exclusive transmissions from the most important festival events, coverage and materials dedicated to each festival day, archive material, retrospectives.

The social media and film distribution expert, Thomas Mai; the specialist Wolf Bosse from the German company Das Werk, the man behind the 3D effects in Pina; the essential director of the Romanian New Wave, Cristi Puiu; director Valdís Óskarsdóttir, BAFTA winner for the editing of Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind; producer Marin Karmitz and actor Michael York are the most important names which will meet the audience in Cluj for a series of exclusive workshops and master-classes.

TIFF’s influence in the cultural landscape of Cluj has become, from one year to another, increasingly more important. If, in 2002, when the first edition of TIFF opened its gates, offering its public 30 films screened in two cinemas, Cluj lacked cultural events at a national and international scale, in 2011 the situation is completely different: the town is hosting one of the most important film festivals in Europe, hundreds of Romanian and foreign guests come every year to Cluj for the 10 days of TIFF, the film feast offered to Cluj-based audience takes place not only in the 8 cinema theatres, but also in Unirii Square, Mănăştur, at Marty Cafe, The French Cultural Institute, TIFF Meeting Point – Art Museum, and even at Bonțida. The Festival also includes an already well-known film workshop for teenagers - Let's Go Digital!, an active film education programme for children - EducaTIFF, an alternative rock festival - AlternaTIFF, a complete series of events dedicated to fashion – under the title TIFFashion, theatre and exhibitions occupy an ever increasing role in the festival programme, which hosts, as well, special screenings and debates dedicated to the environment – grouped in the EcoTIFF programme, established sections dedicated to local cinema – Romanian Days, to Hungarian cinema – Hungarian Day, as well as to multiculturalism – this year, with Diversity Day.

Due to an awareness campaign carried out by TIFF, the host of the Closing Galas for the first festival editions and of hundreds of screenings and special events during the first 9 years of existence of the festival, Cinema Republica, at one point on the verge of being closed down, was completely modernized, in a partnership between the City Hall, RADEF Româniafilm and TIFF, and is waiting for the audience of the tenth edition of the festival with comfort and screening standards completely changed, at the same time having taken the name of the recipient for the Lifetime Achievement Award at TIFF 2009: Cinema Florin Piersic. The festival also supports – through donations and awareness campaigns – the rehabilitation of one of the most important cultural institution in Cluj: The National Art Museum – host of TIFF Meeting Point and of an impressive art collection, housed in a monument building, to which TIFF dedicates a special screening: on Monday, June 6, from 9 p.m., at the Students’ Cultural Center, there will be screened In a Better World (d. Susanne Bier, Denmark, 2010), winner in 2011 of an Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. All proceeds from ticket sales (10 Ron per ticket) will go to the Museum.

This year, Cinema Florin Piersic will also host the first 3D screenings in the history of TIFF, with two stunning art-house documentaries, signed by iconic figures of German cinema: Pina (Germany-France, 2011), directed by Wim Wenders, one of the most hyped films at this year’s edition of Berlin Film Festival, screened of June 4, at 8.30 p.m., and the Cave of Forgotten Dreams (USA-France, 2010), which will be screened on Sunday, June 5, at 10.30 p.m. – by Werner Herzog, the focus of one of the portraits in the 3x3 section.

The festival’s success and spectacular ascension have represented a clear signal and incentive for the film lovers in Cluj-Napoca, and the events dedicated to film, organized by various associations or cultural centers throughout the year have a major relevance in Cluj’s cultural landscape.

TIFF thus represents, at its tenth edition, a solid and unparalleled argument in electing Cluj as Romania’s choice for European Cultural Capital in 2020, which the festival completely endorses.

Between June 3 -12, within the tenth edition of TIFF, one of the most spectacular and appreciated open-air locations of the festival, Unirii Square in Cluj-Napoca, has set in store for the audience in Cluj a series of screenings and events, scheduled both during the day and at night-time.

Inaugurated in 2010 as open-air venue, under the name Ursus Open Air, the screening location in Unirii Square has enjoyed a tremendous success among the audience, in each of the 10 evenings of the festival, with over 1000 viewers who relished hit film titles, from great comedies and original documentaries, to memorable love stories and heart-wrenching dramas.

In 2011, in addition to the night-time screenings at Ursus Open Air, film lovers will have several daytime options for spending their free time, considering the extremely tempting offer of films.

The Ursus Open Air screenings in Unirii Square will start on Friday, June 3, 8.30 p.m., with Potiche (d. Francois Ozon), the comedy that marks the official start of TIFF 2011, following with 9 other hit titles which will charm the audience throughout the rest of the festival, such as Vallanzasca (d. Michele Placido), selected at Venice Film Festival 2010 - a film about Italy's most notorious mobster in the 70s, with Monica Bîrlădeanu playing an important part, Cousinhood / Primos, the third film by Spanish director Daniel Sánchez Arévalo, after Dark Blue Almost Black (2006) and Fat People (2009), present in the TIFF competition of previous editions, both winners of the Audience Award; The Bear (d. Dan Chișu), an gratifying road-movie comedy recently launched on the big screens in Romania, and Rabbit Hole (b. John Cameron Mitchell), which brought Nicole Kidman an Academy Awards nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Football fans will be able to watch Brother / Hermano (d. Marcel Rasquin), the story of two young football players who dare to hope for a better life when a talent scout invites them to try out with the city's best team: Caracas Football Club.

The fans of the famous actress Keira Knightley can admire her in Never let me go (d. Mark Romanek), also starring Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield.

Loose Cannons / Mine Vaganti (d. Ferzan Ozpetek) is another title which will try to win over the audience present at Ursus Open Air. The film was presented at some of the most prestigious international film festivals in the world, such as Berlin (Panorama section), London and Tribeca Film Festival in New York. The film centers on Tommaso, an aspiring writer and the youngest child of an eccentric family. Returned from Rome for an important family dinner during which his father will hand over the management of the pasta factory to him and his brother, Tommaso is determined to assert his own personal choices: he plans to announce that he is gay. But that evening, just as he begins to say “silence please”, he is upstaged by his brother who, to Tommaso’s surprise, and everyone else’s shock, reveals his own secret.

The film offer is completed by Sound of noise (d. Ola Simonsson, Johannes Stjärne Nilsson), winner of the Young Critics' Award at Cannes 2010, Special Jury Mention at Sitges Fantastic Film Festival 2010, Free Spirit Award and Audience Award at Warsaw Film Festival 2010 and The life of Fish / La vida de los peces, Matias Bizé's fourth feature, after he previously attended TIFF with En la cama, Sábado and Lo bueno de llorar. The film won the Best Latin-American Film at the Goya Awards in 2011.

The price for a ticket at Ursus Open Air is 5 Ron, with the exception of tickets for the TIFF 2011 Opening Ceremony - which are 15 Ron. Tickets can be bought at every TIFF Ticketing Point, starting May 30.

Besides film screenings, Unirii Square will also host other exciting activities, such as master-classes, books and DVD launches, conferences, thus becoming the kilometer zero of TIFF 2011.

One of the festival's main attractions is represented by TIFF Lounge, which, starting this year, is changing its location from the Art Museum to the most important town square. The traditional 5 o'clock meetings between film lovers and important guests of the festival, film professionals from Romanian and international film industry, so popular during the previous editions, will continue this year too. In addition, TIFF Lounge will host a series of conferences, panels and launches, both varied as themes and discussion topics, and extremely interesting.

For a second consecutive year, Unirii Square in Cluj-Napoca will host TIFF HAPPY KIDS kindergarten. Organized by TIFF in partnership with the Happy Kids kindergarten within the International School in Cluj, the kindergarten wants to help parents who need to leave their children in the trust of reliable people, in order to enjoy TIFF screenings and events. The kindergarten is dedicated to children between 2 and 10, and it will be open during the festival, starting on June 4.

The important guests of the tenth edition of the festival will be able to relax in a set-up dedicated specially to them: VIP Lounge.

An Info Point will also be available to the general audience, where the public can buy both tickets for TIFF screenings and events, and merchandise branded with TIFF 2011.

TIFF 2011 will pay homage to Jacqueline Bisset, one of the best-known icons of international cinema, who will receive the Special Award for Contribution to World Cinema during the Closing Ceremony of the festival’s tenth edition.

Born on September 13, 1944, in Weybridge, Great Britain, Jacqueline Bisset has had an impressive career, which includes over 80 parts in cinema and TV productions. Star of the silver screen starting the 60s, Jacqueline Bisset has quickly risen to fame, managing to gain both the critics’ and the audience’s appraisal, owing to her roles full of character and charm.

She started in Cul-de-sac, by Roman Polanski, with Donald Pleasence playing the main part. She was then distributed in Two for the Road (1967), alongside Audrey Hepburn, and her first important role was in The Cape Town Affair, in 1967, alongside James Brolin.

The part that made her famous is that of Steve McQueen’s lover in the action movie Bullitt, in 1968. The next year brought her the first Golden Globes nomination, in the Most Promising Newcomer – Female category, for her performance in The Sweet Ride. Jacqueline Bisset was one of the big names in the comedy Airport (d. George Seaton), nominated for 9 categories at the Academy Awards in 1971, among which the one for Best Film. She became known on the European scene in 1973, when François Truffaut’s Day for Night came out, the film that brought her a well-deserved place among the most important actors of the time.

She established her fame in the US with The Deep (1977), with Robert Shaw and Nick Nolte, film which made Newsweek declare her „the most beautiful actress of all time”. She was again nominated at the Golden Globes for the comedy Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?, in 1978, and soon after that she played in Rich and Famous, alongside Candace Bergen. In 1984, the part in Under the Volcano brought her a new nomination at the Golden Globes.

She played alongside some of the most important actors of the last decades. Her name toped the bill for films such as The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean and When Time Ran Out, with Paul Newman. Albert Finney, Mickey Rourke, Anthony Perkins and Michael York starred in films together with her. She worked with directors such as François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, John Huston, Stanley Donen, Sidney Lumet or George Cukor.

In 2000, Jacqueline Bisset was again nominated for the Golden globes, for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the TV mini-series Joan of Arc. For the same role, she received a nomination at the prestigious Emmy Awards (1999). Her most recent films also include The Last Film Festival (d. Linda Yellen), the last film in Dennis Hopper’s career.

In 1996, Jacqueline Bisset was nominated for the César Awards, the Best Actress in a Supporting Role category, for the part in Claude Chabrol’s La Cérémonie, which will be screened during the anniversary edition of TIFF, on June 11, at Cinema Florin Piersic, during a special screening dedicated to the actress.

This year, the countries present in the Focus section with the most representative titles of their recent film production are  Portugal, Belgium and Norway.

During recent years, Norwegian cinema has undergone a spectacular development, to such an extent that the various international achievements of Norwegian productions and the investments in film industry completely justify the birth of Nortwave - The New Wave of Norwegian Cinema.

Focus Norway at TIFF 2011 sets out to bring to Romanian viewers landmark productions from Norwegian cinema, an initiative first undertaken during the Days of Norwegian Cinema, organized in the autumn of 2010 by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Bucharest, together with the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR).

At TIFF 2011, the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Bucharest supports the organization of a Focus on Norwegian cinema, in the context of the 20 years anniversary of the founding of the Norwegian Language Department at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj, as well as the 10 years anniversary of the founding of the Scandinavian Studies Department.

Eight films that have swept the international scene will be presented to the audience in Cluj, within the Focus Norway section of the tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival.

Awarded the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival 2011, Happy, Happy / Sykt Lykkelig (d. Anne Sewitsky) centers on Kaja, who's an eternal optimist, in spite of living with a man who doesn't give her the attention she deserves and would rather go hunting with the boys. But, when “the perfect couple” moves in next door, Kaja meets a completely new, exciting world, with consequences for everyone involved. Happy, Happy will be screened in cinemas across the country, being distributed by Transilvania Film.

Presented in 2010 at Toronto and San Sebastian film festivals, Home for Christmas / Hjem Til Jul (d. Bent Hamer) looks into the theme of living together in all aspects and it explores love at any age and in all its phases. Its characters represent a wide range of ages and social classes, blending humor and tragedy, tenderness and desperation, but always open for forgiveness and hope. 

The must-see Focus Norway line-up is completed by titles like The Angel / Engelen (d. Margreth Olin), winner of the Audience Award at Goteborg Film Festival 2010, Max Manus (d. Joachim Roenning, Espen Sandberg), based on the true story of the eponymous resistance fighter, Nokas (d. Erik Skjoldbjærg), about the biggest bank robbery in Norway, Tears of Gaza / Gazas Tårer (d. Vibeke Løkkeberg), winner of the Audience Award in Goteborg 2011, I Travel Alone / Jeg Reiser Alene (d. Stian Kristiansen), and Russian Lessons (d. Andrei Nekrasov, Olga Konskaya), selected in 2010 at prestigious festivals such as Sundance, Rotterdam, Tampere and Hong Kong.

On the second day of the festival, June 4, the young audience in Cluj is invited at the Students' Culture House for the screening of King of Devil's Island / Kongen av Bastøy (d. Marius Holst), a Norwegian film programmed in the Wasted Youth section of TIFF 2011. The film takes place during the Norwegian winter, early 20th century. On the island Bastoy, located in the Oslo fjord live a group of delinquent, young boys aged 11 to 18. The boys’ daily, sadistic regime is run by the guards and the principal who bestow both mental and physical abuse on them. Instead of the boys being straightened out with education they end up being used as cheap, manual labour. One day a new boy, Erling, arrives with his own agenda; to escape from the island. The screening of King of Devil's Island will have as guests the students of the Norwegian Literature and Language section at UBB Cluj.

Sunday, June 5, at Cinema Florin Piersic, between 11.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m., the audience fascinated by 3D filmmaking can find out more details on this type of cinema during a presentation on stereoscopic shooting techniques, held by Wolf Bosse - General Manager at Das Werk company.

The masterclass presented by Wolf Bosse represents an introduction and look into the history of stereo-3d, touching some fileds of science and perception rules.

The presentation follows the path of stereoscopic attempts through nearly a whole century and ends in our new age of entirely digital
workflow. During the presentation some stereo-dcps will be screened to get closer to the individual aspects.

The second part of the presentation focuses on the 2010 shooting for Pina in Wuppertal and aspects of the digital post-production.

The most recent film and, at the same time, the first 3D feature signed by Wim Wenders, one of the most hyped productions at the 2011 edition of the Berlin Film Festival, where it was screened in the Official Selection – Out of Competition, Pina  (Germany-France, 2011), will be presented for the first time on Romanian screens on Saturday, June 4, 8.30 p.m., at Cinema Florin Piersic in Cluj-Napoca, at the tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), a screening presented by JTI.

As it is presented by the very director who received the Lifetime Achievement Award offered to a European film personality at TIFF 2010, „Pina is a film for Pina Bausch”, one of the most important choreographers of the last decades, and a good friend of Wim Wenders. Shot in 3D with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, this event-film features the unique and inspiring art of the great German choreographer, who died in the summer of 2009. Inviting the audience on a sensual, visually stunning journey of discovery into a new dimension: straight onto the stage with the legendary Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch ensemble, the film follows the dancers out of the theatre into the city and the surrounding areas of Wuppertal - the place, which for 35 years was the home and centre for Pina Bausch's creativity.

The unique dances designed by Pina Bausch, intermingled with moments of movement and subtle gestures, represent the main frame of the film, in which the new 3D images are complemented by archive material of performances given by the company run by the choreographer since 1978. Dancers from all around the world – members of Tanztheater Wuppertal – protagonists of some of the choreographer’s iconic creations (Café Müller, Le Sacre du printemps, Vollmond and Kontakthof ), each pay, one by one, an homage in words and movement, to the one who was their mentor and source od inspiration equally. From a cinematographic point of view, the dances in Pina don’t look like either filmed theatre, or like the audience is used to see in a proper choreography show.

A 3D project initiated by the renowned filmmaker together with Pina Bausch, the documentary was initially programmed to enter production in the summer of 2009. The choreographer died, suddenly and unexpectedly, two days before the shooting was scheduled to start and five days after she was diagnosed with cancer. Wenders stopped preparations, but the entreaties of the dance company and of Pina’s friends and family convinced him to resume the project. Re-thought and turned into a homage paid to both contemporary dancing and to the personality of the great choreographer, Pina received a warm welcome at this year’s edition of the Berlin Film Festival, being one of the most debated titles of this year’s selection.

Labeled by the prestigious British publication The Guardian as „the first art-house film in 3D”, Pina is a path-opener, both for documentary fiilmmaking and for 3D filmmaking. Wim Wenders is convinced that 3D is the most appropriate format for his film and, moreover, he foresees a bright future for it. „It will still be blockbusters and animations, but I think the other future for 3D is documentary. It can make us discover our planet and its people in an immediate and gripping way. 3D is almost tailor-made for dance”, said the director for the same daily, after the Berlin premiere.

Pina thus opens, in a spectacular manner, a new chapter in TIFF’s history: the 3D screenings, which include this year the Cave of Forgotten Dreams (USA-France, 2010), the documentary by Wim Wenders’ fellow filmmaker and countryman, Werner Herzog, who is one of the directors under focus in the 3x3 section.

Pina can be seen in cinemas across the country this year, being distributed in Romania by Parada Film.

The jury has selected the 9 finalist scripts, all winners of the HBO „3 days at TIFF” prize.

The announcement of the winners for the 3 categories will be made during the Awards Ceremony of the tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival, which will be held in Cluj-Napoca between June 3 -12, 2011.

 Here are the finalists of the 3 categories, in random order: 

For the feature film script category:

• Cotovanu Roxana, for 1^st of May
• Paul Negoescu, for 365 New Year’s Eves
• Paul Emil Cioran, for From Now On, You’re On Your Own”

For the short film script category:

• Ionuţ Vasile Gaga, for Penny
• Marian Enache, for Burnt Out
• Alexandru Tocilescu, for Company Party

For the documentary script

• Matei-Alexandru Mocanu, for A Banana Crime
• Ada Maria Ichim, for Hijacked! My Grandfather and the world’s first hijacking
• Ozana Nicolau, for Too Early

The prizes offered by HBO Romania for the National Screenwriting Competition are the following:

• ”HBO Award for the Best Feature Screenplay” is worth 3000 USD.  If the winning script has more than one author, the prize will be divided equally among all authors.
• ”HBO Award for the Best Short Film Screenplay” is worth 1500 USD. If the winning script has more than one author, the prize will be divided equally among all authors.
• ”HBO Award for the Best Documentary Screenplay” is worth 2000 USD. If the winning script has more than one author, the prize will be divided equally among all authors.
• “The HBO - 3 days at TIFF Award” will be offered to the 9 (nine) finalists of the three categories and consists of the following: 3 festival days whose costs will be covered entirely (besides accommodation and transportation, this package includes free access to all screenings and VIP invitations to special events taking place during these days). 

All active film professionals who want to get an accreditation for the tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival have now the possibility to apply for one. The TIFF Accreditation provides free admission to all public screenings and TIFF events (seminars, exhibitions, concerts, cocktails and parties) except events marked on invitation only.

For more details, see here.

Complementing the screening of Balkan's Digest (directed by Ionuţ Piţurescu), an original and intense fusion concert „opens” the musical aspect of Diversity Day at TIFF: Sunday, June 5, at 7.30 p.m., on the TIFF Meeting Point stage (the National Art Museum courtyard), the bands Biokolective Swing (Romania) and Balkan Morgana (R.Macedonia, Serbia) promise a memorable movement and sound show. If the Romanians from Biokolective Swing distinguish themselves through an archaic repertoire, based on music made on instruments extremely rare nowadays, the musicians from Balkan Morgana have sound typical to South-Eastern space, reclaiming Aromanian songs performances with virtuosity accents on Arab lute, clarinet, ney and percussions. The access to the concert held by the two Balkan bands is free.

The first weekend of the tenth edition of TIFF culminates with an exceptional concert: Sunday, June 5, 11 p.m., at Euphoria Music Hall, within the Diversity Day: the renowned Turkish band Baba Zula will give a concert in Cluj-Napoca, alongside one of the most well-known Transylvanian bands - Nightlosers.

Baba Zula shows, held on hundreds of stages around the world, offer a complete audio-visual experience, with performances held in extravagant outfits accompanied by belly dancing, theatre, poetry and live VJ-ing. Their Dub Oriental sound is the result of a mixture of traditional instruments with electro and reggae music. Despite its completely exotic appearance, Baba Zula music has its roots both in oriental traditions, and in the meaning and sonority of '60s rock'n'roll. Due to their extremely well defined style, they were included in Fatih Akin's documentary Crossing the Bridge (2005), an X-ray of the most important Turkish contemporary music trends.

The Transylvanian blues band Nightlosers combines the themes and sounds of Transylvanian traditional music with the American ones. Three studio albums, but also hundreds of concerts in Romania and abroad, have established them as one of the most original Romanian bands of the last two decades, whose media include the violin, electric guitar, drums, but also the harmonica or the washboard.

The tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival has set in store for its public, alongside an intense screening programme, a diversified programme of concerts, from first-rate classical music to genres like alternative rock, indie, blues, punk, ska, electro, and many more.

This year, AlternaTIFF Music Festival reaches its second edition. Between June 8 – 11, AlternaTIFF will offer a varied range of alternative music bands. The festival stages will be hosted by TIFF Meeting Point – the interior courtyard of the National Art Museum, and Boiler Club. 12 Romanian and foreign bands and 5 DJ will animate TIFF nights. The artists which will perform at AlternaTIFF 2011 include: Anima Sound System (Hungary), Nedry (UK), AIRtist (Hungary, Austria), Snails (Moldova), Omul cu Şobolani, Luna Amară, Discoballs, Electric Brother, Electric Fence, Robin and the Backstabbers, Jedam, Lights out!, Gojira, Dubase, K-LU, The Filters from Romania.

This year’s AlternaTIFF event-concert will be held by Gandu Circus, on June 10, at 10.30 pm in Boiler Club. The audience of this year’s most scandalous film, the Indian production Gandu – presented in the Wasted Youth section of the festival, will have the chance to listen to the live performance of the film’s soundtrack, composed by Five Little Indians in collaboration with Gandu the Rapper. The aggressive mixture of sex, drugs, Bengali rap, ska-punk and hardcore will break every Indian convention on film and music. Neel, the guitarist FLI and Gandu the Rapper will hit the public with a real shot of adrenaline in Boiler Club.

On the stage at TIFF Meeting Point, on June 10, at 9.00 p.m., Electric Brother will launch his second solo album – On Earth. Electric Brother has been an omnipresent character on the electronic scene since 1999: he is a music producer, has worked with Matze and DJ Vasile, creating NSK, the songs on his first album have featured on compilations such as Paris Lounge vol. 3, Panorama and Ibiza Fever, he is a member of Aievea band, and together with Vlaicu Golcea he has composed the soundtrack for The Rage (d. Radu Muntean); currently he hosts the show Retroelectro on Radio Guerilla.

AlternaTIFF has in store two unmissable concerts held by Anima Sound System from Hungary and the British band Nedry.

Anima Sound System is one of the first electro bands founded in Eastern Europe. Since its debut in 1994, the band has gone through several changes: from changes of its members to chances of its musical approach: acid-jazz, trip-hop, drum’n bass and ethno-disco. In 2010, the band launched a new album inspired by 80s European electro-dance.

Nedry is a British band founded in 2008. Their sound can hardly be characterized, since the band follows a transgressive path into electro music. Their nonchalant passing through dub-step, post-rock, noise, dubbed in the most experimental manner by the voice of leading singer Ayu, makes the Nedry concert the must-see event of this year’s AlternaTIFF edition.

The surprises set in store by the organizers of Transilvania International Film Festival for the fifth edition of TIFF Sibiu carry on. An event concert and a special screening will top the bill of the second evening of TIFF Sibiu 2011.

Thursday, June 16, 2011, starting with 9 p.m., the well-known artist Goran Bregovic will appear before the audience in Piața Mare (Central Square), together with Wedding and Funeral Orchestra, in a show meant to celebrate the relationship between music and film. The concert will be followed by the screening of The Bear, directed by Dan Chișu, whose soundtrack is signed by Goran Bregovic. The audience in Sibiu will be able to listen to some of the best-known songs of the artist, featured on now famous albums, such as „Tales and songs from weddings and funerals” (2002), „Balkanica” (2000), „Silence of the Balkans” (1998), „Song book” (2000), „Music for films” (2000),„Ederlezi” (1998) and „Underground” (1995), as well as songs from the soundtrack of Dan Chișu's film.

Goran Bregovic returns to Romania, the place where he most likes to throw a concert, due to the public who motivates him, each time, to create outstanding shows, which heat up the atmosphere. During his music career, Bregovic signed several soundtracks which propelled him as one of the most well-rated  omposers for film music. These include the ones made for Emir Kusturica's films: Time of the Gypsies, Arizona Dream, Underground.

Starting with 10 p.m., the giant screen in the Grand Square will “present” The Bear, a road-movie taking place in Romania in the early '90s.. The new director of the State Circus is trying to solve the institutions financial problems by selling the only bear - old and dying – to a German hunter. But, driven by a passion for their profession and love for bear, the artists from the circus oppose the director's decision and follow him to the location where the transaction would take place. Full of unexpected adventures experienced by the bear, circus employees, and all those who make their way out make The Bear the comedy of the year in Romania.

The tickets for the two events in the Grand Square will be for sale starting Monday, May 23, 2011, and they can be acquired for the price of 15 Ron from TIFF Info Point (Piaţa Mare, Piaţa Unirii, bd. Nicolae Bălcescu, bd. Victoriei), Gong Theatre, Music Pub, Hotel Ibis, Casa Luxemburg, Atrium Classic Café, Café Wien, Einstein Café, Info Point Huet Square.

The tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival will pay homage to one of the most outstanding and well-known Romanian film & theatre actors from the last half century, George Motoi, who will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, given to a personality from local cinema.

Born on January 22, 1936, at Arman (Caliacra, now Bulgaria), George Motoi graduated the Film & Drama Institute in Bucharest. He is one the most prized Romanian artists, which a career that spans over almost 50 years, during which he played in countless theatre plays, films and TV productions. Throughout the years, George Motoi has also become known as a theatre director.

He made his debut in film in 1962, with Lupeni '29, directed by Mircea Drăgan. Important parts followed, such as: Magellan’s Return (d. Cristiana Nicolae), July Light (d. Gh. Naghi), Evening (d. Malvina Urşianu), Fleeting Loves (d. Malvina Urşianu), The Jderi Brothers (d. Mircea Drăgan), For Your Country (d. Sergiu Nicolaescu), The Inquiry (d. Constantin Vaeni), The Silence of the Deep (d. Malvina Urşianu), The Silver Mask, (r. Gh. Vitanidis), The Turquiose Necklace, (d. Gh.Vitanidis), Pacific Storm (d. Nicu Stan).

In 1985 he played an exceptional part in Mircea Veroiu’s Adela, for which he was awarded the Grand Prize at San Remo Film Festival.

One of the most important performances of his career remains that of ruler Alexandru Lăpuşneanu in The Return of King Lapusneanu, by Malvina Urşianu. The film presents the second rule of the king, returned on the Moldavian throne in 1564, after an exile imposed by influent noblemen. Lăpușeanu was the most important role I played in cinema. Parts like this one appear only two or three times in an actor’s career, favored only by the cyclical chance, I would call it, of the appearance of exceptional works, said Motoi in his essay book, Under the Actor’s Mask, published in 1989.

His filmography includes working with some of the most important directors of his generation, such as Sergiu Nicolaescu, Mircea Drăgan,  Elisabeta Bostan, Mircea Moldovan, Gheorghe Vitanidis and Malvina Urşianu.

His theatre debut took place at the State Theatre in Piatra Neamț, in 1958, with Love Story by Konstantin Simonov, directed by Cristian Munteanu. He later on played on various important stages, such as the ones in Bacău, Cluj and ultimately Bucharest.

His artistic activity was rewarded with several honors: the ACIN Award for Best Male Performance for Andrei in Fleeting Loves, by Malvina Urșianu, The Excellency Award granted by CNC for Special Contribution to Romanian Cinema, and, in theatre, The National Theatre Festival Award for Victor in Cat on New Year’s Eve, by D.R.Popescu, directed by Vlad Mugur are a few of them.

Notwithstanding the Lifetime Achievement Award, TIFF 2011 will pay homage to George Motoi through a special screening of The Return of King Lapusneanu, scheduled on Saturday, June 11, at Arta Cinema.

Initiated in 2009, at the 8^th edition of Transilvania International Film Festival, EducaTIFF aims to direct the interest of young and very young audiences towards the seventh art. Through this initiative, TIFF takes on the mission to shape, starting at a very young age, an educated film public,  its efforts mirroring other European programmes. The successful first two editions have encouraged the organizers to develop this educational platform, launching new challenges for pre-university students and teachers. Thus, between May 21 – June 12, EducaTIFF has organized, in parallel with the screening and debates programme, a local competition dedicated to 2^nd through 12^th graders, EducaTIFF – Young Film Critics of Cluj.

This competition invites children and young people to express their critic opinion on viewed films, through an established formula – the film review, and it will take place in two stages: selection of the nominees – May 21 – 29, and designation of the winners – May 30 – June 11. For each of the two stages, there will be a screening programme of films carefully selected on age groups. The 3 most talented film critics, designated by a jury made up of film industry professionals and personalities, will have the opportunity to see their reviews published in AperiTIFF – the official newspaper of Transilvania International Film Festival, as well as in other Romanian cultural printed media.

A major part in this competition is played by school teachers, responsible for students signing up. To reward the effort and support shown by teachers towards the film education programme, the organizers have decided that each school teacher who signs up at least 20 students from the class they are accompanying at the EducaTIFF competition screenings will receive a Certificate of Merit.

The EducaTIFF films, which will be subject to the young critics' scrutiny, have been carefully selected, depending on age groups, most of them being award-winners at various international film festivals. The young viewers will have the opportunity to review films such as Persepolis (d. Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi), winner of the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes and nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Animation Feature, The Class (d. Laurent Cantet), Palme d'Or winner in Cannes, or I am Kalam (d.  Nila Madhab Panda), awarded at several international film festivals for children and young people, such as LUCAS International Children's Film Festival (Frankfurt) or CINEKID International Film, Television and New Media Festival for Children and Young People (Amsterdam).

EducaTIFF is a film & media education programme dedicated to pre-university students and teachers from the county of Cluj, initiated by Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF).

For more details on the EducaTIFF 2011 competition and films, please visit the page dedicated to EducaTIFF on our website, www.tiff.ro.

EducaTIFF is supported by the Cluj School Inspectorate and by the „Octavian Goga” County Library in Cluj-Napoca.

Founded in 2002 by Romanian Film Promotion (RFP), Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) has reached its 10^th edition. The first Romanian international feature film festival has become, through the nine years of its existence, a prestigious event and one of the most important festivals around the world. Today, TIFF, accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers' Associations (FIAPF), keeps a select company, made up of 40 competitive festivals  around the world. Thus in 2011, the value of the much coveted Transilvania Trophy, offered to the Best Film in the Transilvania IFF Competition, increases from 10,000 Eur to 15,000 Eur, offered by the Romanian Cultural Institute.

If the audience of the first edition, back in 2002, could only see around 30 titles, at the 2011 edition it has the possibility to choose from an offer of 220 titles – 184 features, 5 medium-length films and 31 short films, from 45 countries.

Until this year's edition, the Festival has made possible the presence in Cluj of a number of prestigious names from the national and international cinema. Thus, throughout the 9 editions so far, among our guests we've had: Jason Priestley, Barry Gifford, Dorel Vişan, Julie Delpy, Victor Rebengiuc, Annie Girardot, Gheorghe Dinică, Ştefan Iordache, Vanessa Redgrave, Irina Petrescu, Franco Nero, Nicolas Roeg, Armand Assante, Radu Beligan, Claudia Cardinale, Florin Piersic, Catherine Deneuve, Tamara Buciuceanu Botez, Dorina Lazăr, Wim Wenders. This year, on its anniversary edition, TIFF has the pleasure to announce the presence in Cluj of one of the most beloved British actors - Michael York. Together with him, more special guests will attend the festival, such as the Romanian-born French producer Marin Karmitz – emblematic figure of French and European film production, founder of the prestigious production and distribution company MK2, and the cinematographer Oleg Mutu, one of the best rated Romanian directors of photography at present, the one who is responsible for the image in films such as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days or My Joy. TIFF 2011 will pay homage to these two guests by offering a Special Award, dedicated to the 10^th edition of the festival. Among other high profile guests, not to be missed in Cluj-Napoca are Swedish actress Pernilla August, who will present her debut in feature film directing, Beyond, programmed in the Supernova section and director Lech Majewski, The Mill and the Cross, one of the hits in the No Limit section.

Between June 3 – 12, throughout its 10 days, TIFF invites its audience in the now traditional venues, like Florin Piersic Cinema (former Republica Cinema), Victoria Cinema, Arta Cinema, Art Museum – the traditional Meeting Point TIFF, as well as in new locations, such as Odeon Cineplex (in Polus Center), The French Cultural Institute and Students' Cultural Centre. Open-air screenings will be organized in Unirii Square, at Bonțida Castle and in the Mănăștur neighborhood of Cluj-Napoca.

The 10^th edition of Transilvania International Film Festival will put together a large array of special events, which brings the 7^th art closer to the other arts. Thus, Cluj will host original photo exhibitions, concerts (the 2^nd edition of AlternaTIFF music festival will take place) and plays will be staged under the name Theatre at TIFF.

Every year, starting with the 2005 edition, one of the sections most anticipated by the festival audience at Transilvania Film Festival is the one dedicated to the best of domestic cinema. For three days, film lovers will be able to enjoy during the Romanian Days the best recent domestic productions, some of which will be screened in Romania for the first time, and some as world premieres.

This year's selection, put together by the Festival's Artistic Director, Mihai Chirilov, is made up of 12 features, 4 medium-length films and 11 short films. The highlights of the feature film selection are, no doubt, Cătălin Mitulescu's new feature, Loverboy, and Constantin Popescu's Principles of Life, with Vlad Ivanov in his first main role, as Chirilov points out the unquestionable hits of the 2011 Romanian Days selection.

Straight from the red carpet at Cannes Film Festival, where it was selected in the Un Certain Regard section, Loverboy, the second feature directed by Cătălin Mitulescu, travels to Transilvania IFF to meet the festival's audience and compete with the other outstanding  Romanian films of the year. Ada Condeescu and George Piştereanu, the main actors of If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle (d. Florin Şerban), winner of the Silver Berlin Bear – Grand Jury Award and the Alfred Bauer Award at the 2010 Berlinale and 7 Gopo Awards in 2011, including one for Best Film, this film tells the story 20-year old boy who charms girls, makes them fall in love with him and passes them over to a human trafficking network in the Black Sea port Constanta. For the policemen in the human trafficking department, this recruitment method is called „the method by seducing” and the ones who practice it, „loverboys”. However, the boy's plans are overturned when he falls madly in love with Veli, one of the girls he was supposed to recruit.

Director  Constantin Popescu returns to the Romanian Days with his second feature: Principles of Life. His first feature, Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man, was presented at TIFF 2010 at Berlin Film Festival 2010 (Berlinale Forum).

The film is also one of the contenders for the Transilvania Trophy, being the only Romanian production present in this year's TIFF Official Competition. The main part is played by Vlad Ivanov (4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days), with important supporting roles from Gabriel Huian, known from the medium-length film Marilena from P7 (by late Cristian Nemescu) and Rodica Lazăr (The Death of Mr Lăzărescu, Amen).

Mihai Chirilov mentions, amongst the highlights of the feature film selection, several other titles: George Dorobanțu, winner of the TIFF Best Debut Award for  Elevator, returns with an original experimental essay, under the title Bucharestless. A special mention to Lucian Georgescu's debut on a script written in collaboration with Barry Gifford, The Phantom Father, film on whose birth TIFF had a contribution, by inviting the American writer to be in the 2003 jury.

If the Seed Doesn't Die, by Sinișa Dragin, is another title with can be viewed during the Romanian Days. The film won the Robert Bosch Stiftung Audience Award at Rotterdam Film Festival in 2011 and was selected in 2010 in the competition of the most important Japanese film festival, the one in Tokyo. The feature tells the story of two fathers, a Serbian one and a Romanian one, who are trying to deal with drama. The Serbian man comes to Romania to recover his dead son's corpse, while the Romanian one is trying to find his daughter, sold as a prostitute in Kosovo.

If the Seed Doesn't Die is the forth feature film by Sinișa Dragin. He has also directed Everyday God Kisses Us on the Mouth (2002), awarded the Golden Tiger at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2002, The Pharaoh (2001) and Long Journey by Train (1997).

The Romanian Days line-up aligns other titles which have swept the international film festivals, such as Morgen (d. Marian Crişan), winner of three awards at Locarno Film Festival 2010, and three awards at Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2010 (Best Director Award, Best Male Performance Award: András Hatházi and Yilmaz Yalcin, FIPRESCI Award), Outbound by Bogdan George Apetri, awarded, among others, the Boccalino d’Oro Independent Critics' Award for Best Performance (Ana Ularu) at Locarno International Film Festival 2010.

This year's Romanian Days are not lacking in documentaries either: Romanian-German co-production Close to Heaven, a film directed by Titus Faschina, whose soundtrack is signed by the unmistakable Alexander Bălănescu, and which won the ERT3 Broadcasting Special Mention and WWF Award at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival 2011, Metrobranding – a Love Story between Men and Objects, by Ana Vlad and Adi Voicu, as well as the medium-length films Party and Contest in Ciupleniţa, by Liviu Săndulescu, The Corlat Valley, by Stephane Lucon and 24 buckets, 7 mice, 18 years, by Marius Iacob.

At TIFF 2011, 11 impressive short films complement the recent national film offer. They include Silent River (d. Anca Miruna-Lăzărescu), present in the 2011 short-film competition of Berlin Film Festival; Stop Over (d. Ioana Uricaru), selected in the 2011 Official Competition of Sundance Film Festival, film starring Monica Bîrlădeanu, the actress who was part of 2010 TIFF jury, and the singer Marian Drăghici; Draft 7 – the film with which Luiza Pârvu returns to the TIFF selection, after she competed in 2010 within the same section with The Birthday; the documentary You Can't Hide Love from Gypsies (d. Mara Trifu), present in Cannes 2011, in the Critics' Week / Semaine de la Critique (NISI MASA programme), as well as Superman, Spiderman or Batman (d. Tudor Giurgiu), having its world premiere screening at TIFF.

Mihai Chirilov also recommends the festival audience a number of documentary and short-film titles from the Romanian Days selection: the pièce de résistance of the documentary slot is the German-Romanian feature Close to Heaven, by Titus Faschina and co-produced by Thomas Ciulei, while 15 titles are fighting in the competition for the best short-film, amongst which the most radical title of the programme, the daring Film for Friends by Radu Jude, two films already shown in Sundance and Berlin, respectively - Stopover (by Ioana Uricaru, based on a script by Cristian Mungiu) and Silent River (by Anca Miruna Lăzărescu) – and the excellent 24 buckets, 7 mice, 18 years (by Marius Iacob), screened for the first time.

This year, the jury which will decide the winners of the Romanian Days, for Best Film and Best Debut, is made up of 3 personalities of European cinema:  Nadia Paschetto – director and programmer of Arras International Film Festival, Dana Enulescu – BBC correspondent for the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Rome and Daniela Michel – director of Morelia Film Festival.

ROMANIAN DAYS 2011 SELECTION

FEATURE FILMS

Adalbert's Dream / Visul lui Adalbert
(d. Gabriel Achim, Romania, 2011)
Cast: Gabriel Spahiu, Doru Ana, Anca Androne. Ozana Oancea, Paul Ipate, Mimi Brănescu, Mircea Rusu
World premiere

Bucharestless
(d. George Dorobanţu, Romania, 2011)
World premiere

Close to Heaven / Aproape de cer
(d. Titus Faschina, Romania – Germany, 2011)
Documentary
Awards and selections: Special Mention at ERT3 Broadcasting, WWF Award at Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival 2011

Different Mothers / Despre alte mame
(d. Mihai Ionescu, Tiberiu Iordan, Romania, 2010)
Cast: Silviu Geamănu, Gavril Pătru, Marius Adrian Cordoş, Mihai Baranga, Robert Radoveneanu
Awards and selections: International Film Club'S Federation Award at Moscow International Film Festival 2010

If the Seed Doesn't Die / Dacă bobul nu moare
(d. Sinisa Dragin, Romania, 2010)
Cast: Mustafa Nadarevic, Dan Condurache, Milos Tanaskovic, Franz Buchrieser, Ioana Barbu
Awards and selections: Robert Bosch Stiftung Audience Award at Rotterdam Film Festival 2011; Tokyo Film Festival 2010

Loverboy
(d. Cătălin Mitulescu, Romania, 2011)
Cast: George Piştereanu, Ada Condeescu, Ion Besoiu
Awards and selections: selected in the Un Certain Regard competition at Cannes Film Festival 2011

Metrobranding – a Love Story between Men and Objects
(d. Ana Vlad &  Adi Voicu, Romania, 2010)
Documentary
Awards and selections: DokLeipzig International Film Festival 2010; Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival (Czech Republic) 2010; European Film Festival (Romania) 2011

Morgen
(d. Marian Crişan, Romania-Franţa-Ungaria, 2010)
Cast: András Hatházi, Yilmaz Yalcin, Elvira Rîmbu
Awards and selections: 11 nominations, including Best Film at the Gopo Awards 2011 (Romania); Special Jury Prize, Ecumenical Jury Prize, Don Quijote Award, IIIrd Prize in the Youth Jury selection at Locarno Film Festival 2010; Best Director, Best Male Performance Awards (András Hatházi and Yilmaz Yalcin), FIPRESCI Award at Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2010

Outbound / Periferic
(d. Bogdan George Apetri, Romania-Austria, 2010)
Cast: Ana Ularu, Mimi Brănescu, Andi Vasluianu, Ioana Flora, Timotei Duma
Awards and selections: Boccalino d’Oro Independent Critics' Award for Best Performance (Ana Ularu) at Locarno International Film Festival 2010; Special Jury Prize, Special Mention of the Ecumenical Jury, FIPRESCI Award at Warsaw International Film Festival 2010; Greek Film Critics' Association Award, Best Actress Award (Ana Ularu) and Golden Alexander – Best Feature Film Award at Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2010; FIPRESCI Award at Vienna International Film Festival (Viennale) 2010

Principles of Life / Principii de viață
(d. Constantin Popescu, Romania, 2011)
Cast: Gabriel Huian, Vlad Ivanov, Rodica Lazăr
Awards and selections: Official Competition - San Sebastian International Film Festival 2010; East End Londra International Film Festival 2010; Bratislava International Film Festival 2010; Göteborg International Film Festival 2011

The Bear / Ursul
(d. Dan Chişu, Romania, 2011)
Cast: Mihai Constantin, Şerban Pavlu, Magda Catone, Claudiu Bleonţ, Gabriel Spahiu, Serban Celea

The Phantom Father / Tatăl fantomă
(d. Lucian Georgescu, Romania, 2011)
Cast: Marcel Iureş, Mihaela Sârbu, Barry Gifford, Victor Rebengiuc, Mariana Mihuţ
World premiere


MEDIUM-LEGTH FILMS

24 buckets, 7 mice, 18 years /  24 Găleţi, 7 Şoareci, 18 ani
(d. Marius Iacob, Romania, 2011)
Documentary
World premiere

A Film for Friends / Film pentru prieteni
(d. Radu Jude, Romania, 2011)
Cu. Gabriel Spahiu, Şerban Pavlu
Awards and selections: NexT International Film Festival 2011 (Romania); European Film Festival (Romania) 2011

Party and Contest in Ciupleniţa / Petrecere şi concurs în Ciupelnița
(d. Liviu Săndulescu, Romania 2011)
Documentary
World premiere

The Corlat Valley / Valea Corlatului
(d. Stephane Lucon, Romania, 2011)
Documentary
Awards and selections: One World Romania Human Rights Documentary Film Festival 2011


SHORT FILMS

Bora Bora
(d. Bogdan Mirică, Romania, 2011)
Cast: Mirela Zeţa, Alexandru Potocean
Awards and selections: NexT International Film Festival 2011 (Romania)

Draft 7
(d. Luiza Pârvu, Romania, 2011)
Cast: Olimpia Melinte, Eduard Petru Jighirgiu
Awards and selections: UNATC Rector's Award – CineMAiubit International Student Film Festival 2010 (work-in-progress); NexT International Film Festival 2011 (Romania); Timishort International Short Film Festival 2011 (Romania); Cannes Film Festival 2011 (Short Film Corner)

Lunch Break / Pauza de masă
(d. Ciprian Alexandrescu, 2010)
Cast: Vlad Ivanov, Mihaela Sârbu, Tudor Aaron Istodor
Awards and selections: Timishort International Short Film Festival 2011 (Romania)

Outrageously Disco
(d. Nicolae Constantin Tănase, Romania, 2009)
Cast: Aylin Cadîr, George Albert Costea
Awards and selections: Critics' Award and Best Art Direction – CineMAiubit International Student Film Festival 2009 (Romania); NexT International Film Festival 2010 (Romania); Timishort International Short Film Festival 2010 (Romania)

Silent River / Apele tac
(d. Anca Miruna Lăzărescu, Germany-Romania, 2011)
Cast: Andi Vasluianu, Toma Cuzin
Awards and selections: Official Competition - Berlin International Film Festival 2011; Audience Award for a Romanian film, Best Romanian Film, Special Jury Mention at NexT International Film Festival 2011; Cannes Film Festival 2011 (Short Film Corner)

Stopover
(d. Ioana Uricaru, Romania – Italia, 2011)
Cast: Monica Bîrlădeanu, Damian Drăghici
Awards and selections: Official Competition – Sundance Film Festival (USA) 2011

Strung Love
(d. Victor Dragomir, Romania, 2010)
Cast: Bogdan Marhodin, Alexandru Potocean, Olivia Niţă
Awards and selections: nominated for the Gopo Film Awards 2011 (Romania) for Best Short Film; Best Actor Award, Critics' Award, CineMAiubit Trophy 2010 (Romania); Audience Award – Filmul de Piatra Short Film Festival 2011 (Romania); NexT International Film Festival 2011 (Romania); Timishort International Short Film Festival 2011 (Romania), Cannes Film Festival 2011 (Short Film Corner)

Superman, Spiderman or Batman / Superman, Spiderman sau Batman
(d. Tudor Giurgiu, Romania, 2011)
Cast: Zsolt Bogdan, Aron Hanga, Cornel Răileanu
World premiere

The Counting Device / Numărătoarea manuală
(d. Daniel Sandu, Romania, 2010)
Cast: Alexandru Georgescu, Cătălin Stelian
Awards and selections: NexT International Film Festival 2011 (Romania)

Transylvania Girl / Fata din Transilvania
(d. Sabin Dorohoi, Romania, 2011)
Cast: Maia Morgenstern, Andreea Vasile, Orlando Petriceanu
World premiere

You Can't Hide Love from Gypsies
(d. Mara Trifu, 2011)
Documentary
Awards and selections: Semaine de la Critique ( NISI MASA programme) at Cannes Film Festival 2011

Transilvania International Film Festival continues in 2011 the collaboration with online broadcasting platforms, in streaming, dedicated to the most important film festivals around the world.

Initiated successfully with the 2010 edition with the partnership with MUBI, it expands at the 10^th edition with TIFF joining the Festival Scope partners network, a platform dedicated to film professionals from around the globe. If, during the festival and only after their first screening in Cluj-Napoca, MUBI will offer the Romanian-based film lovers the possibility to view a number of titles selected in TIFF's Official Competition, under the limit of 300 viewers for each title, between June 3 – 12, Festival Scope will offer titles from Shadows Shorts and Romanian Days sections to film festival representatives, distributors, sales agents and producers from all parts of the world who are users of this platform.

One of the emblematic Anglo-Saxon figures of the last half of the century, British actor Michael York, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award offered to a personality from the European cinema at the 10th edition of Transilvania International Film Festival. After Claudia Cardinale, Catherine Deneuve or Franco Nero, York will also be one of the honored guests of the Cluj-Napoca based film festival, where the audience will be able to meet him during a special screening.

Performances such as the ones from Cabaret (d. Bob Fosse, 1972); D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (d. Richard Lester, 1973); Count Andrenyi in Murder on the Orient Express (d. Sidney Lumet, 1974) have propelled him on the European film scene and endeared him to generations of viewers. Born on March 27, 1942, in Fulmer – England, Michael York attended the Oxford University Dramatic Society (he graduated Oxford 1964), and owing to entering Laurence Olivier's Theatre Company, he met the Italian film director Franco Zefirelli, the one who would give him two of the most important parts played by York before 1070: the role of Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew (1967) - his debut, as well as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1968) – the first important role of his career. The same year he made his debut in a feature, York played in Accident, directed by Joseph Losey, winner of the Special Prize of the Jury in Cannes 1967. The Island of Doctor Moreau (d. Don Taylor), in which he plays alongside Burt Lancaster; Jesus of Nazareth (d. Franco Zefirelli), in which he stars together with Christopher Plummer, Laurence Olivier, Anthony Quinn and Claudia Cardinale – winner of the 2009 Transilvania IFF Lifetime Achievement Award and the films in the Austin Powers series are some of the films in which Michael York played memorable performances.

Owner of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame since 2002, nominated for the Emmy Awards in 2001 for an Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series (The Lot) and for the Saturn Award for Best Actor in 1978 (The Island of Doctor Moreau), Michael York's career comprises of more than 131 feature films, series and TV movies, including guest appearances in some of the most popular recent TV productions, such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, Justice League or Gilmore Girls. In 1987 he was a member in the Official Competition Jury of Venice International Film Festival, and in 2002 he received from one of the most prestigious film festivals in Europe the Town of Karlovy Vary Award.

12 feature films are contending for the much coveted Transilvania Trophy at the tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF).

An impressive competition, dedicated by tradition to first and second feature film directors, made up of recent productions coming from various countries, such as Iceland, Sweden, USA, Germany, Denmark, Argentina, Belgium, Uruguay, Israel, Russian and India, acclaimed at the most important film festivals around the world, including Cannes, Locarno, San Sebastian, Palm Springs or Berlin.

Mihai Chirilov, the festival’s artistic director, guarantees a balanced and eclectic selection: genre movies (a comedy: King's Road; two thrillers: No Return and The Silence), but also films that defy any labeling, genuine cinematographic UFO’s (A Useful Life and The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project); movies made on a comfortable budget, but also guerilla productions made on a micro budget (The Imperialists are Still Alive!); innovative and daring  films, due both to their content and to their form (She-Monkeys, and Innocent Saturday, respectively). Last but not least, intimate films that put under the microscope individual destines in extreme circumstances (The Flood, Oxygen, Volcano, Principles of Life) – this description being valid, more or less directly, for all 12 features in this year’s TIFF competition.

Romania is yet again present in this year’s TIFF Official Competition, this time with Principles of Life, director Constantin Popescu”s second feature (after The Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man). Present in the competition dedicated to first and second feature film directors at San Sebastian, the film tells the story of a man who apparently had everything he ever wanted: a family, a home, money. Still, a series of problems appears exactly before his leaving for holydays and puts his entire existence under question. The main part is played by Vlad Ivanov (4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days), with important supporting roles from Gabriel Huian, known from the medium-length film Marilena from P7 (by late Cristian Nemescu) and Rodica Lazăr (The Death of Mister Lăzărescu, Amen).

Volcano, Rúnar Rúnarsson’s feature debut, is clearly one of the films most anticipated both by critics and general public, which will have its world premiere within the Directors’ Fortnight section at Cannes Film Festival 2011. The three short-films made so far by Rúnar Rúnarsson have swept the international scene, being either nominated for the Academy Awards (The Last Farm) or selected in Cannes (Two Birds, Anna).

Iceland-born director Valdis Oskarsdottir returns to TIFF with the second feature of her career, King's Road, after the successful comedy Country Wedding, presented at the 2009 edition of the Cluj-Napoca based festival. A tragic-comedy screened for the public in the Piazza Grande section of the Locarno Film Festival, which will undoubtedly win over the audience, with main parts from Daniel Bruhl (Goodbye, Lenin!, Inglourious Basterds) and Gisli Örn Garðarsson (Prince Of Persia).

The competition line-up goes on with Lisa Aschan’s She-Monkeys, awarded the Crystal Globe – Special Mention for Best Feature in the Generation 14plus section of Berlin Film Festival 2011, The Imperialists are Still Alive!, Zeina Durra’s debut selected in Sundance 2010 competition and A useful life, by Federico Veiroj, awarded the Special Mention in the New Directors competition at San Sebastian International Film Festival 2010.

Thriller fans are expected at the screenings of No Return, Miguel Cohan’s feature debut, winner, amongst many, of the awards for Best Feature Film, Best New Director and of the FIPRESCI award at Valladolid International Film Festival and The silence, by Baran Bo Odar, another title from the Piazza Grande section of Locarno International Film Festial 2010.

OFFICIAL COMPETITION 2011

A useful life / La vida util

(d. Federico Veiroj, Uruguay – Spain, 2010)

Cast: Jorge Jellinek, Manuel Martinez Carril, Paola Venditto

Selections and Awards: Special Mention – New Directors competition San Sebastian International Film Festival 2010; FIPRESCI Award, Special Mention awarded by the Columbian Critics, Cinema Clubs Special Mention Cartagena International Film Festival (Columbia) 2011; Coral Award for Best Feature Latin-American International Film Festival Havana (Cuba) 2010; Special Jury Award Istanbul International Film Festival 2011; Ibero-American Competition Miami International Film Festival 2011

Innocent Saturday / V subbotu  

(d. Alexander Mindadze, Russia – Germany – Ukraine, 2011)

Cast: Anton Shagin, Svetlana Smirnova, Stanislav Ryadinskiy

Selections and Awards: Official Competition Berlin International Film Festival 2011

King's Road / Kóngavegur 7

(d. Valdís Óskarsdóttir, Iceland, 2010)

Cast: Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Daniel Brühl, Gísli Örn Garðarsson 

Selections and Awards: Locarno International Film Festival 2010; Chicago International Film Festival 2010

No return / Sin Retorno

(d. Miguel Cohan, Argentina – Spain, 2010)

Cast: Leonardo Sbaraglia, Martin Slipak, Bárbara Goenaga

Selections and Awards: Best Feature, Best New Director and FIPRESCI Award Valladolid International Film Festival 2010; Ibero-American Competition Miami International Film Festival 2011; Latin Film Festival Chicago – opening film

Oxygen / Adem

(d. Hans Van Nuffel, Belgium, 2010)

Cast: Marie Vinck, Gijs Scholten van Aschat, Stef Aerts

Selections and Awards: Annoay International Film Festival (France) 2011; Palm Springs International Film Festival 2011; Amiens International Film Festival (France) 2010

Principles of Life / Principii de viaţă

(d. Constantin Popescu, Romania, 2011)

Cast: Gabriel Huian, Vlad Ivanov, Rodica Lazăr

Selections and Awards: Official Competition San Sebastian 2010; East End International Film Festival London 2010; Bratislava International Film Festival 2010; Göteborg International Film Festival 2011

She-Monkeys / Apflickorna

(d. Lisa Aschan, Sweden, 2011)

Cast: Mathilda Paradeiser, Linda Molin, Isabella Lindquist

Selections and Awards: Crystal Bear - Special Mention Best Feature Generation 14plus Berlin International Film Festival 2011; Dragon Award Best Nordic Film and FIPRESCI Award Göteborg International Film Festival 2011; Tribeca International Film Festival (USA) 2011

The Flood / Mabul

(d. Guy Nattiv, Israel, 2011)

Cast: Shmil Ben Ari, Yakov Cohen, Ronit Elkabetz, Michael Moshonov

Selections and Awards: Crystal Globe - Special Mention Generation Kplus Competition Berlin International Film Festival 2011; Best Israeli Feature and Best Cinematography Haifa International Film Festival 2010; Ophir Award (Israeli Academy of Film) Best Supporting Actor (Michael Moshonov)

The Silence / Das letzte Schweigen

(d. Baran Bo Odar, Germany, 2010)

Cast: Ulrich Thomsen, Wotan Wilke Möhring, Katrin Saß

Selections and Awards: Official Selection Piazza Grande Locarno International Film Festival 2010; Sao Paulo International Film Festival (Brazi) 2010; Stockholm International Film Festival 2010; Palm Springs International Film Festival 2011; Nuremberg Turkish-German International Film Festival (Germany) 2011

The Imperialists are Still Alive!

(d. Zeina Durra, USA, 2010)

Cast: Élodie Bouchez, José María de Tavira, Karim Saleh

Selections and Awards: Official competition Sundance International Film Festival 2010; Best First Feature Award Warsaw International Film Festival 2010; Salonic International Film Festival 2010; Camerimage International Film Festival (Poland) 2010; Black Nights International Film Festival Tallinn (Estonia) 2010; Morelia International Film Festival (Mexico) 2010; American International Film Festival Deauville (France) 2010; Woodstock International Film Festival (USA) 2010

The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project

(d. Srinivas Sunderrajan, India, 2010)

Cast: Swara Bhaskar, Vishwesh Krishnamoorthy and Kartik Krishnan

Selections and Awards: Mumbai International Film Festival (India) 2010; South-Asian International Film Festival New York 2010; Asian Hot Shots International Film Festival Berlin 2010

Volcano

(d. Rúnar Rúnarsson, Denmark, 2011)

Cast: Theodór Júlíusson, Margrét Helga Jóhannsdóttir, Elma Lísa Gunnarsdóttir

Selections and Awards: Official Selection Directors' Fortnight Cannes International Film Festival 2011 (World Premiere)

The tenth edition of the most important Romanian film festival could not overlook another well-established competition: the Shadows Shorts section, dedicated to horror & fantasy films. Programmer Mihai Mitrică, director of the Anim’est International Animation Film Festival, has revealed some of the reasons that make this year’s Shadows Shorts films one the highlights of the festival.

This year’s Shadows Shorts line-up puts together twelve very distinct films. We won’t enjoy only bloody horrors with zombies and monsters, we will also take pleasure in animation films (3 titles), mood films, strange and novel films that don’t keep to any cinema rules, besides the ones related to the impeccable design, from every point of view. From a stylistic point of view, they have one single thing in common: the dark, sinister, ominous mood. There is no sun in Shadows Shorts!

An absolute must-see of the section is Night Fishing, directed by cult-director Park Chan Wook, together with his brother – Park Chan-Kyong, winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. The film was shot entirely on IPhone4, one more reason that makes this film not-to-be-missed. Co-director Park Chan-Kyong will personally attend the screenings in Cluj-Napoca.

The Shadows Shorts line-up is completed by Dennison Ramalho’s Ninjas, selected in the Official Competition at Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival, All Flowers in time, by Jonathan Caouette, author of Tarnation and member of Gus van Sant’s post-production team, with whom he worked with on several movies, but also the person behind the special effects in Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg’s famous film, Through the night, by Lee Cronin, nominated for the BAFTAs 2010 for Best Short Film, animated films Danny Boy, by Marek Skrobecki, Martyris, directed by Luis Felipe Hernandez Alanis, and Innercity by Alain Fournier. 

SHADOWS SHORTS COMPETITION 2011

All Flowers in Time

(d. Jonathan Caouette, Canada, 2010)

Cast: Chloë Sevigny

Selections and Awards: Special Mention Press Jury Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2011; Grand Prize Canal + Etrange Film Festival 2010; Sundance Film Festival 2011; Rotterdam International Film Festival 2011; Sitges Fantastic Film Festival 2010; Cannes Film Festival 2010

Danny Boy

(d. Marek Skrobecki, Poland – Switzerland, 2010)

Selections and Awards: Shanghai International Film Festival 2011; Stuttgart Animation International Film Festival 2011; ANIFILM Animation Film Festival Trebon (Czech Republic) 2011; Animateka Animation Film Festival Ljubljana (Slovenia) 2010

Deus Irae

(d. Pedro Cristiani, Argentina, 2010)

Cast: Gaston Ricaud, Bernarda Pag

Selections and Awards: Fantastic Fest (USA) 2010; Florida Film Festival 2011

Fairycatcher

(d. Kealan O'Rourke, Ireland, 2009)

Cast: Des Braiden, Lorna Dempsey

Selections and Awards: Fantasporto Film Festival (Portugal) 2011

Inner City

(d. Alain Fournier, Canada, 2011)

Selections and Awards: Rendez-Vous de Cinema Quebecois 2011; Cannes Film Festival (Short Film Corner) 2011

La Petite Mort

(d. Jan Gallasch, Germany, 2010)

Cast: Thomas Koch, Sarah Rebellato

Selections and Awards: Fantastic Fest (USA) 2010; Horror Screamin' Film Festival Athens 2011

Martyris

(d. Luis Felipe Hernandez Alanis, Mexico, 2010)

Selections and Awards: Sitges Fantastic Film Festival 2010

Night Fishing

(d. Park Chan Wook, Park Chan-Kyong, South Korea, 2011)

Selections and Awards: Golden Bear Best Short Film Berlin 2011

Ninjas

(d. Dennison Ramalho, Brazil, 2010)

Cast: Flavio Bauraqui, Carlos Meceni

Selections and Awards: Best Short Film New York International Horror Film Festival 2010; Underground Film Festival Boston; Fantastic Fest (USA) 2010; FanTasia Film Festival Montreal 2010

Off Season

(d. Jonathan van Tulleken, USA, 2009)

Cast: Bill Sage

Selections and Awards: BAFTA Nomination for Best Short Film 2010; Grand Prize Panavision Jury Palm Springs Short Film International Film Festival 2010; Brooklyn  International Film Festival 2009; Seattle International Film Festival 2009

Through the night

(d. Lee Cronin, Ireland, 2009)

Cast: Eoin Macken, Nora-Jane Noone

Selections and Awards: Imagine Fantastic International Film Festival Amsterdam 2011; Atlanta Short film Festival 2010; Cork Short Film Festival (Ireland) 2010

To my mother and father

(d. Can Evrenol, UK, 2010)

Selections and Awards: The Most Disturbing Film of the Year Award HP Lovecraft Film Festival Portland 2010; Best Experimental Film of the Year Award Manisa Altin Üzüm Film Festival (Turkey) 2010;  Sitges Fantastic Film Festival (Spain) 2010; Fantasticfest Austin Texas (USA) 2010; Screamin' Horror International Film Festival Athens 2010; Rennes International Short Film Festival (France) 2010

Four of the five Official Competition Jury members and the three jurors for the Shadows Shorts section have also been confirmed. They are important personalities of contemporary worldwide cinema.

This year’s Official Competition Jury is made up of important names from film industry, such as the French exhibitor Laurence Herszberg – General Director of Forum des Images in Paris; the Serb producer Cedomir Kolar, whose credits include titles like Train of Life (d. Radu Mihăileanu) and Cirkus Columbia (d. Danis Tanovic); the Italian director Uberto Pasolini – recipient of the Best Director Award at TIFF 2009 for Machan; and his Romanian fellow director, Radu Muntean – one of the most prominent names of the Romanian New Wave, present in the 2003 TIFF Competition with his first feature, Furia.

Antonio José Navarro (Spain) – selector of the most important fantastic and horror film festival in the world - Sitges (Catalunia), Jukka-Pekka Laakso (Finland) – director of the Tampere Film Festival and Eric Dinkian (France) – director, author of Precut Girl, selected in the 2010 Shadows Shorts competition are the three members of the jury who will decide the winner for Best Film in the Shadows Shorts section at TIFF 2011.

The most respected filmmaker in the history of Romanian cinema, director Lucian Pintilie, will be one of the guests of honour of the 10^th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival.

The festival audience & guests will be able to watch the Romanian master's complete film works – consisting in 10 features and a medium length film – in an unprecedented & extensive retrospective. It is also the first and only time that Lucian Pintilie accepts to attend the screenings & meet the audience of a Romanian film festival.

Pintilie's classics Reenactment (1971), one of the highest-rated Romanian films of all times and one of the most important manifestos of Romanian cinema; Carnival Scenes (1982), an adaptation of the play by Romanian playwright Ion Luca Caragiale; The Oak (1992), screened in the official selection of the Cannes International Film Festival, which got leading actress Maia Morgenstern an EFA Award in 1993; An Unforgettable Summer (1994), starring Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient, Mission: Impossible, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Il y a long temps que je t’aime)  and selected in the competition of the Cannes International Film Festival; Too Late (1996), also selected in the Official Competition at Cannes; Terminus Paradis (1998), winner of the Special Jury Award in the Cannes competition; or The Afternoon of a Torturer (2001), also screened in Cannes; but also Sunday at Six (1965), Pintilie's highly powerful debut feature, starring Irina Petrescu and Dan Nuţu; Yugoslav feature Paviljon VI (1978); Niki and Flo (2003), with Romanian stars Victor Rebengiuc and Razvan Vasilescu, and Pintilie's most recent film, medium length Tertium non datur (2006), featuring some of the most important contemporary Romanian actors in all generations, such as Victor Rebengiuc,  Cornel Scripcaru, Bogdan Stanoevici, Gabriel Spahiu, Tudor Aaron Istodor or Toma Cuzin.

Lucian Pintilie is the first winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Romanian film industry award - the Gopos - in 2007.

Since 2010, Transilvania IFF features a competition for amateur and professional filmmakers residing, working or studying in the Cluj county. For the past few years, home to two film universities, Cluj-Napoca has been the focal point of an artistically efervescent and cinema-oriented region, which has also been reflected in the number of films produced in the region, which were entered in the selection process each year.

The Transilvania IFF Local Artists' Competition is organized together with the Cluj-Napoca contemporary art center Fabrica de Pensule, which will also host the shorts' screening and the Award Ceremony. Fabrica de pensule will also offer a special mention – called Personal Paradise – to the film which offers a highly creative vision of what stands for an artist's personal universe / paradise. The films, produced between June 7^th, 2010, and May 15^th, 2011, have to be shorter than 30 minutes, of any genres or type, and submissions are expected until May 15^th, 2011,  on the festival's office address - ROMÂNIA FILM, Filiala Cluj (P-ţa UNIRII Nr. 24).

Last year, the successful Local Artists' competition was won by two shorts, ex-aequo: Pânza / The Canvas (dir. Codin S. Pop, 18') and A night on Earth - Cluj (dir. Visky Abel, 20').

The big winner of the 1942 Venice International Film Festival, Italian-Romanian co-production Odessa in Flames / Odessa in Fiame (dir. Carmine Gallone) will be featured in the 10^th edition of the Transilvania IFF in an event open air screening at the Banffy Castle in Bonţida, on the evening of June 7^th.

Recognized as one of the masterpieces of European cinema during WWII, Odessa in Flames , has been thought to have been lost forever until a few years ago. The old 35 mm copy was found in 2005 in Rome, in one of the archives of the Cinecitta studio. Restored and remastered a few years later, it is now ready to meet the Transilvania IFF audience. Written by Nicolae Kiritescu at the initiative of Romanian legend film critic & producer Ion Cantacuzino.

The film, set in the first years of WWII, stars famous Romanian opera singer Maria Cebotari (1910 – 1949), who plays the part of leading role of Maria Teodorescu, who gets stuck in Chisinau during the 1940 Soviet invasion of Bessarabia, then – part of Romania. Her 8 year-old son is taken to a camp in Odessa (today – in Ukraine), and, in order to be able to see him again, she has to earn her living by singing in bars, taverns and theatres. Things change when the Romanian army comes to town and liberates it, the following year.

Film critic Alex Leo Şerban, one of the representative figures of Romanian contemporary cinema, has passed away on April 8, 2011, at the age of 51,  after a long and painful  battle with illness (lymphatic cancer).

Leo was one of the closest friends of Transilvania International Film Festival, ever since its foundation in 2002, and his loss is deeply felt by the entire TIFF team.

Born on June 28, 1959, film critic, author of essays, prose, translations, visual artist, senior editor at Dilema Veche, Alex Leo Şerban graduated the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Bucharest in 1983, being also awarded several fellowships, by the French Ministry of Culture in 1992, “International Visitor” in the U.S. in 1996 and the GE/NEC fellowship between 2003 and 2004. Since 1982, he has been present (with essays, poetry, prose and translations) in most of the Romanian cultural publications (România literară, Secolul 20, Luceafărul, Contrapunct, Litere, Arte & Idei, Lettre internationale, Ideea, etc.) and in various foreign publications (Cahiers du cinema, Cover Magazine, Film Comment). He also wrote for Elle, Idei în dialog, Libertatea, Observator cultural, Suplimentul de cultură, Ziarul de duminică.

He was the only Romanian film critic invited on Bernard Pivot’s show Double Je (2004). Author and moderator of the show Fotograme on TVR Cultural (2005-2006). Lecturer at the Lincoln Center, at the Universities of Umea, Humboldt and Pittsburgh, and at the National Theater in Bucharest. He presented the Lucian Pintilie retrospective in London (2004), curated and presented the Romanian Film Festival “Romanian Cinema: A Journey”, organized by the Romanian Cultural Institute in London (2007), and the “Shining Through a Long, Dark Night” retrospective at the Lincoln Center (2008). In January 2008 he was elected, through a public poll on www.cinemagia.ro, The Favorite Film Critic of Romanian Film Lovers. He was the first beneficiary of the Grand Prize for Cultural Journalism, awarded by Fundatia Timpul, also in 2008.

Through the years, he has been a member in the juries of many prestigious film festivals from all around the world, including the jury of Transilvania International Film Festival – at its second edition, in 2003.

His friendship and support towards the festival have had a huge contribution in TIFF’s emergence on the national and international stage, and he has always been one of the festival’s most beloved guests.

Those who wish to express their feelings on the loss of Leo may do so by sending their messages to info@tiff.ro. The messages will be posted on our website, in a special section.

The 10^th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival will feature an even more important focus on classical and contemporary Romanian cinema, celebrating 10 years since its rebirth, with the 2001 premiere of Stuff and Dough, Cristi Puiu's debut feature selected in the Directors' Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival. A series of events dedicated to the past, present & future of the Romanian cinema – oriented to both industry members and the general audience – will highlight the intense schedule of the 6th Romanian Days (June 9-11^th).

Puiu's first feature opened the way for Romanian filmmakers and put the country back on the map of European cinema. It was followed the next year by Cristian Mungiu's Occident, featured as well in the Directors' Fortnight competition. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (dir. Cristi Puiu, 2005), 12:08 East of Bucharest (dir. Corneliu Porumboiu, 2006), The Way I Spent the End of the World (dir. Catalin Mitulescu, 2006), 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (dir. Cristian Mungiu, 2007), California Dreamin' (Endless) (dir. Cristian Nemescu, 2007), Police, Adjective (dir. Corneliu Porumboiu, 2009), If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle (dir. Florin Serban, 2010) Tuesday, After Christmas (dir. Radu Muntean, 2010), Aurora (dir. Cristi Puiu, 2010) or The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu (dir. Andrei Ujică, 2010) are only a few of the Romanian features which have toured the festival circuit, winning hundreds of selections and awards and have been distributed worldwide ever since.

On of the key filmmakers of the New Romanian Cinema, Cristi Puiu, and already a cult figure of the contemporary European cinema, will hold an event masterclass and attend a special screening of Stuff and Dough., seen again by its protagonists and the Cluj audience ten years after its release. 

As the countdown for the Transilvania International Film Festival's 10^th edition is starting, we are proud to announce the opening title of 2011: on June 3^rd, in Cluj-Napoca's main square (Piata Unirii) the festival audience will begin the 10-day festival adventure with a smile: Francois Ozon's Potiche is the opening title for this year's edition.

Transilvania IFF Lifetime Achievement Award winner Catherine Deneuve will return to the Cluj big screen as the leading lady in Ozon's latest featured, premiered in the frame of the 2010 Venice Film Festival and screened with great succes, both to festival and general audiences. The film's highlight cast includes, besides Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu and Fabrice Luchini.

An ironical overview of the troubled time of the 70s France, Potiche focuses on the emancipation of middle-class wives of those years. When her husband (Luchini) is taken hostage by his striking employees, a trophy wife (Deneuve) takes the reins of the family business and proves to be a remarkably effective leader. Business and personal complications arrive in the form of her ex-lover (Depardieu), a former union leader.

The line-up Transilvania International Film Festival's traditional showcase section of the most acclaimed recent features worldwide, SUPERNOVA, already looks inviting to Romanian and foreign festival attendants.

Best Foreign Language Feature Academy Award and Golden Globe winner In a Better World (dir. Susanne Bier, Denmark, 2010); Pernilla August's debut feature as a director, psychological drama Beyond (Sweden, 2010), winner of the International Critics' Week and the Christopher D. Smithers Foundation Special Awards at the last edition of the Venice Film Festival; John Cameron Mitchell's Rabbit Hole (USA, 2010), starring Academy Award nominee Nicole Kidman; Matias Bize's  The Life of Fish (Chile, 2010), winner of the Best Latin American Feature Goya Award in 2011; Poetry (South Korea, 2010), Lee Chang-Dong's Cannes Best Screenplay Award winning feature; A Sad Trumpet Ballad (dir.  Álex de la Iglesia, Spain, 2010), winner of the Silver Lion for Best Directing and the Best Screenplay Award in Venice 2010; Mike Leigh's Academy Award nominated Another Year (USA, 2010), selected in the official competition of the Cannes Film Festival; Brother and Sister (dir. Daniel Burman, Argentina, 2010), selected in the official competition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and Sergey Loznitsa's My Joy (Ukraine, 2010), selected in the official competition of the Cannes Film Festival, shot by Romanian DOP Oleg Mutu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu).

Winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at Transilvania IFF in 2005, French legend actress Annie has died on Monday, February  28^th, at the age of 79.

She remains one of the most important and influential French actresses of the past century. Her parts in over 150 films have marked young & old for the past 50 years.

Born on October 25^th, 1931 in Paris, she played her first part back in 1955, in André Hunebelle's Treize à table. Her electric part in Luchino Visconti's Rocco and his brothers (1960) turned her into a European star, rocketing her career into one of the most glamorous on the continent. Parts in iconic films of the past decade, such as Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher (2001) and Caché (2005) have kept her in the spotlight as an inspiration for the new generations of actors.

In 2005, Mrs. Girardot travelled to Cluj-Napoca to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, creating one of the most impressive moments in the history of the Transilvania International Film Festival and being one of the first cult figures of world cinema to attend the young Romanian festival, then – at its fourth edition.

Transilvania IFF expresses its grief and admiration for a great friend of the festival and a truly inspirational artist in the history of European cinema.

The General Assembly of the International Federation of Film Producers’ Associations (FIAPF) held in Berlin on February 13^th, 2011, approved the accreditation of the Transilvania International Film Festival in 2011. This puts the Cluj-Napoca festival on the A list for Specialised Competitive Festivals, due to the profile of the Official Competition, specialised on first or second time feature directors. Transilvania is thus acknowledged as one of the top 40 film festivals in the world – also being one of the youngest to have made it on the list.

“With the rising number of festivals around the globe, FIAPF-accreditation states clear rules both for the festivals and the licensors. As a quality label, FIAPF accreditation fully contributes to the development of the festival and guarantees an efficient promotion among the worldwide professionals. In an increasingly competitive environment, festivals need adapted regulator frames: FIAPF is the natural sphere to prevent conflicts between festivals under the auspices of the profession. Any festival with strong development expectations has all interest to be in than out.” said Benoît Ginisty, FIAPF Director General.

With the accreditation of Transilvania International Film Festival FIAPF reinforces its cooperation in the Eastern and Central Europe. Besides Transilvania IFF, since 2006, FIAPF has accredited the Black Nights International Film Festival in Tallinn (Estonia), the Era New Horizons Film Festival in Wroclaw (Poland) and the Sofia International Film Festival (Bulgaria).

“The accreditation of the coming edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival is seen as a recognition of the work already done by the festival's team, from 2002 until now. It gives us great satisfaction to have met the high FIAPF standards right before Transilvania IFF's tenth edition, making our festival one of the youngest to have ever received this recognition. We hope that our work will still be appreciated from now on and we promise even greater editions in years to come” stated Tudor Giurgiu, President and founder of the Transilvania International Film Festival.

“Producers need references to understand the changing festivals world. This remains true for foreign producers in respect to the high number of European festivals. FIAPF-accreditation is a key-tool for a lot of worldwide licensors. By accreditating the festival, FIAPF also wants to recognise the amazing work done by the Transilvania International Film Festival in setting up an important meeting point in a few years for all those interested in the Romanian films” added Benoît Ginisty.

German cult director Werner Herzog will be honoured with a special retrospective section in this year's Transilvania IFF. Other line-up highlights already confirmed include special focuses on the best recent & classical Belgian and Norwegian films.

This year's Transilvania IFF will also feature the famed Complete Film Works of legendary French filmmaker, clown and comedian Pierre Étaix, restored by the Technicolor Foundation for  the Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma with Studio 37 and Pierre Étaix. Five features and three shorts make up the special Étaix line-up, including his come-back work En Pleine Forme (2010).

Traditional showcase sections Supernova (a selection of recent festival hits), Shadows (horror / thriller / fantasy features), No Limit (highly provokative pieces of cinema) and What's Up, Doc? (a selection of outstanding recent documentaries) will also bring the best of recent cinema worldwide in the spotlight, together with unconventional indoor and outdoor events.

The traditional Transilvania IFF hub ever since its first edition in 2002 and Cluj-Napoca's biggest cinema - Republica has undergone a complete refurbishment and will be a top host for TIFF's audience & guests this June!

With a brand new screen, new seats and fully equiped with 2D & 3D screening facilities and a complete change in style for the well-known lobby, the 750-seater has also been given the name of cult Romanian actor and Cluj-Napoca legend Florin Piersic, recipient of the Transilvania IFF Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.

Over 1,000 residents of Cluj-Napoca attended the cinema's official opening , on January 26th, 2011, hosted by TIFF President Tudor Giurgiu.

The refurbishment was a joint effort of the Cluj-Napoca City Hall and Local Council and the RADEF Romaniafilm state-owned cinema exhibitor, the co-owners of the theater, and it was the effect of a long-term Transilvania IFF lobby and media campaign.

We are looking forward to welcoming you in a state-of-the art theater downtown Cluj-Napoca for the 10th Transilvania IFF!

The photo gallery from the grand opening is here!

Romanian cinema is well represented in the most important film-related events of the month: the Berlin and Clermont-Ferrand festivals.

Romanian Film Promotion holds the Romanian stand in the frame of the 2011 Berlin European Film Market (February 10-20), representing & promoting local production companies and film events. The participants & guests of the Berlinale will also find useful information on the two Romanian films selected in the Berlinale Shorts competition this year: July 15^th (dir. Cristi Iftime, produced by the National University of Drama & Film “I.L. Caragiale”) and Silent River (dir. Anca Miruna Lăzărescu, a German-Romanian coproduction by Filmallee and Strada Film). The Romanian Films brochure – an extensive catalogue of Romanian features produced from 2008 to 2010, as well as information on upcoming films & projects in development, with complete contacts and other useful materials will be available to all the market visitors.

Romania is also represented in the 26^th Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Market (February 7-11), where the Estenest Association is hosting the Romanian Booth. Festival & market attendants may find there insight on production opportunities and key Romanian short film players. Romania is also present in the Euro-Connection short film co-production forum, with Liviu Săndulescu's The Cement Mixer, produced by Mandragora, and in the Kodak Showcase screening, where talented Romanian DOP Mihai-Marius Apopei, voted the best in the European-Middle Eastern-African area of the Kodak Film School Competition will be presenting his Close Encounters of The Third Reich (dir. Victor Dragomir).

The Romanian film stands in Berlin and Clermont-Ferrand are organized with the support of the Romanian Film Centre. The Romanian stand is also supported by the Titu Maiorescu Romanian Cultural Institute (RCI) in Berlin, while the one in Clermont-Ferrand is supported by the RCI in Paris.

The already traditional follow-up of the most important Romanian film festival in the Transylvanian town of Sibiu, will be held in 2011 from June 15^th – June 19^th, and it promises to make an even bigger impact than it has so far.

Five days of a joint arts' festival, including film screenings, drama, dancing, music concerts and photography exhibitions will bring the true atmosphere of Transilvania IFF to one of the landmark towns of Transylvania and key tourist destinations of the country.

Sibiu was the European Capital of Culture in 2007, when Transilvania IFF first came into town for a record edition: in that year, the 10-day festival took place symultaneously in Cluj-Napoca and Sibiu. Ever since, Sibiu is a part of Transilvania IFF's schedule.

Romanian cinema experiences an enthusiastic finish for a very good year 2010.

Two of the most important Romanian films of the year, Bogdan George Apetri's Outbound /  Periferic and Marian Crisan's Morgen, have triumphed in the 51^st Thessaloniki International Film Festival (December 3-12, 2010).

Prison drama Outbound has won the Golden Alexander Award for the Best Film in the International Competition; leading actress Ana Ularu was rewarded with the Best Actress Award and The Greek Film Critics Association (PEKK) Award, while Marian Crisan got the Best Directing Award, his leading actors Andras Hathazi and Yilmaz Yalcin sharing the Best Actor trophy for their performances in Morgen. Crisan's feature also won the FIPRESCI Award for a film in the International Competition.

The two features, which had their world premieres at the previous edition of the Locarno International Film Festival, will be included in the line-up of the Transilvania IFF Romanian Days, the competitive showcase dedicated to the best of domestic cinema.

The 33^rd Poitiers International Film Schools Festival, one of the most important student film festivals in Europe, has seen Iulia Rugina claim Best Director Award for her medium-length film Stuck on Christmas / Captivi de Craciun, selected in the 2010 Romanian Days line-up of Transilvania IFF. The Poitiers festival has run from December 3^rd to 12^th, 2010.

Leading actor in the most succesful Romanian short film of the year, Adrian Sitaru's The Cage / Colivia, Adrian Titieni, has won the Best Actor trophy at the 4^th GrandOFF – World Off Film Awards, which took place November 22-29^th 2010 in Warsaw, Poland. The GrandOFF Awards are destinated to offer recognition to the best independent shorts of the year, being one of the most important European galas celebrating short films. The Cage has won the Romanian Days Award for Best Short Film at the 2010 Transilvania IFF.

An enthusiastic audience has filled up the two rooms of the New York Tribeca Cinemas for the 5^th Romanian Film Festival organized by the Romaian Cultural Institute in NY, The Transilvania International Film Festival and the Tribeca Cinemas. Entitled “A New Beginning” and held this year from December 3^rd – 5^th,  the festival was much appreciated by both the US audience and press.

Calin Peter Netzer's Medal of Honor and Alexander Nanau's The World According to Ion B. were the winners of the Audience Award, voted by the festival's attendants.

The 5^th Romanian Film Festival offered a spotlight on the best of what Romanian cinema had to offer in 2010, including a focus on Romanian Women Directors, a retrospective of documentaries produced by HBO Romania, and a selection of some of the best short films of the year, together with a special Closing Night screening of Carnival Scenes (dir. Lucian Pintilie, 1981).

Legend Romanian actor Victor Rebengiuc was the honourabile guest of this year's edition, while the guest list also included actresses Monica Barladeanu (Francesca), Mariana Mihut (Carnival Scenes), Ozana Oancea (First of All, Felicia, Stuck on Christmas), director/producer Bobby Paunescu (Francesca, Aurora), producer Andrei Cretulescu (Merry Circus, The Shukar Collective Project, The World According to Ion B.), producer/director Tudor Giurgiu, director of Transilvania International Film Festival, Professor Vladimir Tismaneanu, and film critic Alex Leo Serban.

The Romanian Film Festival in New York Citywas initiated in 2006, and is a partnership of the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York (RCINY) with the Transilvania International Film Festival and Tribeca Cinemas.  Initiated and chaired by Corina Suteu, director of RCINY, the festival selection committee also includes Mihai Chirilov, curator, and Oana Radu, RCINY deputy director. Since its inception, the festival has featured great works of contemporary Romanian cinema such as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu by Cristi Puiu; 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days by Cristian Mungiu; California Dreamin’ (endless) by Cristian Nemescu; and, 12:08 East of Bucharest by Corneliu Porumboiu. The Festival is also devoted to revisiting landmark Romanian films, and has presented great works such as Reenactment and The Oak by Lucian Pintilie.