SECTION: Spotlight Romania

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The Spotlight România shows what Romanian cinema is dealing with today.

A cross-genre look at a film scene that reflects the history and society of its country with unbroken creativity and open flanks, in and away from the big cities.

In 2001, Cristi Puiu's feature film debut "Stuff & Dough" screened in competition at the FFC, a harbinger of the Romanian New Wave. At least since the international success of "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" a few years later, Romanian cinema has been convincing with the closeness to everyday life of its characters and a flair for telling relevant stories laconicly. In doing so, it explores not only the nuances of communication, but also its hidden backstories. Names such as Puiu, Cristian Mungiu, Adina Pintilie and Radu Jude have become indispensable in the canon of European film.

Other Romanian films will be screened in the Feature Film Competition, the Short Film Competition and in the Specials series What's left.

Supported by the Ministry of Finance and for Europe of the State of Brandenburg and the Romanian Cultural Institute "Titu Maiorescu" in Berlin.

We thank the Transilvania International Film Festival for the cooperation.

Cold Waves

RĂZBOI PE CALEA UNDELOR

Alexandru Solomun
RO/DE/LU / 2007 / 106 min

Radio Free Europe, which broadcast from Munich during the Cold War, was a thorn in the side of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu's real-socialist Romania. An enthralling documentary about the station's Romanian editorial team, financed first by the CIA and ...

EAGLES FROM ŢAGA EAGLES FROM ŢAGA

Vulturii din Țaga

Adina Popescu/ Iulian Manuel Gharvas
RO/SK / 2022 / 74 min

Sometimes everything just seems to go against him: the weather, the referee, his wife and even his own players. Manager Nelu holds his football team together with a mixture of passion and defiance. And yet the Eagles from Țaga, Transylvania, are ...

Immaculate

Imaculat

Monica Stan/ George Chiper-Lillemark
RO / 2021 / 114 min

Alone amongst junkies, Daria defends her feigned innocence against the sexual advances of her fellow inmates, yet soon comes to find that her special treatment comes at a price in this mysterious milieu study of a clinic for heroin addicts told from ...

OCCASIONAL SPIES

Spioni de ocazie

Oana Giurgiu
RO / 2021 / 118 min

Unusual espionage: In 1943, the British secret service hired the services of eastern Europeans who had emigrated to Palestine with the aim of having them engage in espionage activities in their former home countries. They were to help track down ...

R.M.N.

Cristian Mungiu
RO/FR/BE / 2022 / 125 min

A spectral social drama set in a Romanian mountain village. Half-Roma Matthias hastily returns from Germany, where he works in a slaughterhouse, since his son Rudi, upon seeing something mysterious in the local forest, has ceased speaking. Meanwhile, ...

Swamp City

Bogdan Puslenghea/Ovidiu Zimcea
RO / 2021 / 105 min

Punk, Electro, New Wave, Hardcore: The underground music scene in Timişoara in the late 1980s and the 1990s. Rebellion against the authorities and creative protest, but also clashes between right and left. Tales and anecdotes that were repeated in ...

MY FAMILY AND I

Gabriel Juduc
RO / 2021 / 4 min

Sleek fashion film with a profound message. Gabriel Juduc reflects on the values he was once taught and what remains of them. In elegant images he tells of the changing times and his path of acceptance above all of himself.

INBETWEEN HOME

STILLE POST

Brigitta Kanyaro
RO/AT / 2022 / 17 min

Romanian Marinela relies on the translation skills of her daughter Ilinca for her official visit, but the 8-year-old has other plans. Full of colorful misunderstandings, a child's wishes meet her mother's existential worries.

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER

ÎN NUMELE TATĂLUI

Vladimir Dembinski
RO / 2021 / 28 min

Dark psychological thriller set in a remote Transylvanian village. Since her mother disappeared, Emma lives alone with her evil father, but one day she thinks she saw her mother in the market crowd and begins to have doubts.

DINCOLO

Luca Peres-Bota
RO / 2022 / 12 min

One phone call is enough to turn everything upside down. Having come to Belgium to earn money, Romanian Bogdan suddenly gets a call at work that his wife has been in an accident. But how can he be in two places at once?

I AM DORIN

EU SUNT DORIN

Valeriu Andriuta
RO / 2020 / 23 min

Wild and humorous, the film tells of the clever but poor Dorin, who takes on the bachelor exam of a 'rich kid` for money. He has only one night to prepare, but on that very night a party troupe lands in his dorm room.

ALONG CAME A PRINCE

Trecea un prinț călare

Cristina Grosan
RO / 2022 / 22 min

During a theater workshop for teenagers, young Alex gets into an intimate situation with an older girl. But is this really what he wanted? Annoyance, congratulations - Alex doesn't know what's happening to him with this reversal of gender roles.

MIRACLE

Miracol

Bogdan George Apetri
RO/CZ/LV / / 118 min

A stunning reinterpretation of the crime genre in two harrowing episodes. One tells of the beautiful Cristina, a 19-year-old nun who becomes the victim of a crime. The other follows Inspector Marius as he tries to reconstruct the crime. In doing so, ...

LETTER OF FORGIVENESS

BILET DE IERTARE

Alina Șerban
RO / 2020 / 14 min

Gripping historical drama in a short format. In the household of a wealthy Romanian noblewoman in 1855, Maria, a Roma slave, fights for the freedom of her son Dinca. Once the master of the house made her a promise, but then he died.