Festivals CLUJ
International Film Festival in Kluj (17th TIFF )
Female dominance: festival with the scent of women
A unique experience, said the invitation letter. After attending 18 film festivals, going for the first time to Romania - and Kluj -, I was curious and held a small basket. The reception was most obliging and the ensued eight days manifested a meticulously organised festival. Staff and volunteers stood-by to offer help and solve unexpected problems, always with a smile. The nine main theatres were full in most of the films. Despite the sudden rainfalls and the hot weather at times, venues were punctual. No complaints. No chaos.
There was also a great symbolic notion in this year’s TIFF.
-100 years both for Romania (National Centenary) and for Bergman.
-17th TIFF itself, like a teenager spreads its wings for higher skies, for new horizons.
Reporting on the program of 204 films follows the normal path: Juries, awards, famous guests, honors to lifetime achievements, in memoriam, etc. The festival films focused on a variety of categories covering almost every cinematographic aspect.
I must confess what impressed me most of this festival:
1) The basic concept of offering an extensive opportunity to young Romanian film makers to show their work – about twelve films were rewarded. It is known that there is a fervent drive lately, to create the substantial environment to reach other Balkan cinema statuses. And the growth is undeniably rapid, by all standards; in thematic, high quality, vision.
2) A reconnection/ nostalgia for the old masters of cinema: Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Hitchcock, Bergman, François Truffaut, Jean-Mark Barrs, Polatov, Lucien Pintiliu etc.
3) The novelty idea of open-air night screenings and the discussions open to public in TIFF Lounge, which caught by surprise many locals joining out of curiosity and soon participating with questions.
4) TIFF 17th was a predominantly feminine festival! Most of the people in-and-around it were women! Apart from TIFF’s president Tudor Giurgiu, most of the organisers, directors, producers, actors, jury members, theme stories about women in heroic struggles in extreme situations. See: madam Marta Mezsaros, lady Fanny Ardant, Mercedes Cordova, Adina Pintilie and Touch-me-not’ casting, screen writer Rebecca Linkiewitz’s, etc, just to name a few.
The festival committee: Tudor Giurgiu (president), Mihal Kirilov (artistic director), George Ivascu (Culture Minister ), Emil Boc (Cluj-Napoca Mayor), Liliana Tutoiu (Romanian Culture President), Teodora Agafitei (Starobramen Brand Manager in Romania), and Omer Tetic (Transilvania Bank CEO).
Juries:
- For Competetion:
1) Agnies Kocsis (born in Budapest, a Film International Critic, graduate on Polish literature, Aesthetics and Film Theory, with two film awards in Cannes and one on the way),
2) Dakur Kari (born in France, raised in Iceland and studied in Denmark, with four films awarded in many festivals around the world, and a Transilvania Trophy),
3) Rebecca Lenkiewicz (play and TV Drama writer, co-author in three awarded films - Disobedience screened at TIFF 2018),
4) Stefan Foekinos (French Canadian, director of about 60 feature films, Cesar award winner and screenwriter for TV and cinema) and
5) Vlad Ivanov (Romanian actor in about 16 films, one of the best in Europe, receiver of LA Critics award).
- For FIRPRESCI:
1) Anton Filatov (member of the Ukrainian Film Academy, film critic, journalist, author of hundreds of articles on cinema) and
2) Eva Peydro (Spanish literature expert, film critic and columnist in entertainment and culture magazines).
Transilvania International Film Festival - 17th edition Awards at the Closing Gala took place in the Kluj National Theater (a fantastic opera-hall).
The Transilvania Trophy, offered by Staropramen, went to The Heiresses, the first Paraguayan film in TIFF, by director Marcelo Martinessi, Silver Bear winner at the Berlinale, in a 12-film competition, based on the powerful narration. It was presented by international opera star Angela Gheorghiu.
The Best Directing Award went to Hlynur Pálmason, director of Winter Brothers, a passionate, energetic film depicting the clash between two radically different brothers in a Danish quarry. It was also awarded in Thessaloniki film festival last November, along with Charleston.
The Performance Award, presented by actor Jean-Marc Barr’s, sublime humor, was shared by three actors, Natalia Tena, Oona Chaplin, and David Verdaguer in Carlos Marques Marcet’s Anchor And Hope. A charming and intelligent story.
Two profoundly heroic films received Euro Special Jury Award offered by HBO. The Home, by Iranian director Asghar Yousefinejad for its realistic treatise on morality, and Scythe Hitting Stone by Anna Kruglova, an apocalypse impressively well structured.
The FIPRESCI Prize (International Federation of Film Critics) for section To Be or Not to Be Politically Correct? went to a "scary" prediction for future capitalistic society: Life Guidance by Ruth Mader.
MasterCard presented the Audience Award to The Guilty, by Gustav Moller. A Danish thriller of searching a kidnapped woman stupefied audience.
Romanian Days: Pororoca, by Constantin Popescu won the Best Feature Film Award, offered by Cinelabs Romania, was presented by actress Mădălina Ghenea.
Ivana Mladenovic’s controversial Soldier, Story From Ferentari received the Best Debut Feature Award offered by Banca Transilvania “for the courage and dignity exhibited both by the director and by the characters she constructed.”
Best Short Film Award, and camera equipment offered by Cutare Film, went to The Christmas Gift, by Bogdan Mureanu. Two Special Mentions went to Dorian Bogună’s Sunday and to Anghel Damian’s Michelangelo.
The most popular film of this section, Daniel Sandu’s One Step Behind The Seraphim, received its first award of the Romanian Days Audience Award offered by Dacin Sara. Director Iura Luncanu handed it to young actor Stefan Iancu.
Shadow Shorts Competition Award went to Fran Casanova’s Something in the Darkness.
Eliza Zdru won the Alex-Leo Șerban Fellowship for her feature-length documentary Learning-Teaching.
Special Mention received
1) Tamás Chirodea-Ambrus for the development of a clever website and
2) for the first time, a young Romanian actor Mircea Postelnicu, for his lead role in Ana, Mon Amour, by Călin Peter Netzer.
Berlinale winner Touch Me Not received a Special Mention from the Romanian Days jury. Director Adina Pintilie, explained earlier in the crowd gathered in Unurri, that the project - really a workshop - was one of many to follow in an attempt to raise the issues of deep intimacy and understanding sexuality, away from the general misconceptions we all grew up with.
EuroEurimages Award (Pitch Stop Workshop and Co-production Development) went to Pavle Vučković’s project Frost, and to Cristian Pascariu’s project October (CoCo award). Chainsaw Europe awarded Last Bus by Nándor Lőrincz and Bálint Nagy.
The Villa kult Cultural Residency award for script development in Berlin, went to the winner of the To the North by Mihai Mincan.
TV5 Monde (Institute Français) and RFI Romania, offered the Young Francophone Jury Prize to The Prayer by Cédric Kahn.
Over 800 guests, filmmakers, film lovers, journalists, etc., were at the Closing Gala hosted by TIFF President Tudor Giurgiu, while thousands followed the ceremony live, through Facebook and YouTube. Guest of honor for this edition, Fanny Ardant, radiant, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from TIFF’s President and a standing ovation. Actor Florin Piersic, handed Anna Széles, former partner and co-star, the TIFF’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her charming 50 years ‘on-stage.’ Similar awards were bestowed to Marta Mezsaros and Istvan Szabo.
Dan Nuțu, “one of the most iconic actors of Romanian film,” said Cătălin Ștefănescu bestowing him the Excellence Award offered by Mercedes-Benz.
The voice of late director Lucian Pintilie during a moving homage screened in the National Theater had an emotional effect. TIFF President Tudor Giurgiu dedicated the evening to him.
Mark Barr, special guest at TIFF lead the festival’s closing film, Luc Besson’s The Big Blue.
Greece was present with three films: Pity (IKTOS - Greece and Poland) by Babis Makridis, based on a story of a lawyer in coma, ULTRA (Hungary and Greece) by Balasz Simonyi, on documenting a Marathon Athens-Sparta, and Dolphin men (Greece and Canada) by Lefteris Charitos.
The festival arranged for me to have interviews with the following people. Adina Piltilie, Marta Mezsaros, Mercedes Cordova and Sara Tsokridis.
-Interviewing Adina Pintilie, one of my main goals to come to Kluj, was an apocalypse. In the following open talk in Unirii, many thoughts of mine were overturned. Berlinale winner Touch Me Not received a Special Mention from the Romanian Days jury.
- Aurora Borealis - Northern Light, by Marta Mezsaros film was breathtaking. And so was the Diary for my Children. The interview was such a pleasure. Wise and thoughtful, she reminded me so much of Agnies Vardas.
- Mercedes Cordova, with a very interesting doc film Food to Go, is a very communicative and jovial person.
- Sara Tsokridis, a young versatile film maker, surprised me with her cinema endeavors repertoire and her Greek origin – her grandfather left Greece for Hungary after the civil war.
Though Bergman’s Persona was not my first choice, but the Serpents Egg and the Seventh Seal, I was delighted by the two Romanian actresses reenacting the scene from Persona, in an explicit reference to the Romanian vampire mythology.
I wish to mention some of the films – not awarded - I personally found interesting. Free Dacians (Monty Pythons style, funny and informative) and Not So Bright side of things (actress playing Neda is a promising star) touched on the ‘de-institutionalization’ tendency. The short films 8 minutes, Parabelum and Must Love Kubrik, were excellent samples of new cinematographers. Though Insulta was a very extremely well constructed political film, the end was a disappointing ‘low’. As for Caniba, though cinematographically very advanced writing, it seemed too long (dragging) – Angelopoulos style? Gelozia by David Foekinos (France) gave us a classical vivid clash between a stubborn mother and her daughter, a fantastic ballet performer.
So, after the Romanian Days and the Transilvalia Nights which were a treat - on the plane returning home, after seeing 32 films, I ‘pinched’ myself to make sure that it was all true. My only wish remains for continuing upward success of the TIFFs ahead.
Kiriakos Peftitselis
Published in: Greek news media (AVGI) and EURO Channel.
