From October 14 to 20, the Astra Film International festival from Sibiu will screen 20 films connected to Romania by subject or by author: 13 documentaries are in the Romania and DocSchool competitions, four of them are in thematic programmes and in the Astra Film Junior selection and three films will have event-screenings.
The films in the
Romania competition cover both the small, intimate history and the big one. By the themes they approach, the directors touch the most sensitive chords of the Romanian society, challenging the viewers to a deeper understanding of the country, from its building, starting with 1918, until the difficult years of the dictatorship. They also tackle phenomena that appeared in the past 30 years from the Revolution, such as migration or corruption.
The Golden girl / Fata de aur (Denisa Morariu Tamaş, Adrian Robe) eplores a dramatic moment in the history of the Romanian gymnastics, at Sydney 2000 and Andreea Răducan`s fight with the people who deceived her, while trying to get back her gold medal and her pride.
Pastures New (Anne Schiltz, Charlotte Grégoire) speaks about emigrations and feeling of missing home, that the inhabitants of the Mălâncrav village in the Sibiu county feel.
The House with a Lock / Casa cu lacăt (Diana Gavra) is an exploration of the phenomenon of corruption, whose tentacles are deeply rooted in the mentality and the daily life in Romania. The documentary
Teach/
Profu`(Alex Brendea), developed during the
Romanian Docs in Progress program at AFF 2016, will have the world premiere at this year`s edition.
30 years after the fall of the Communism, the film
Rebeli cu o cauza / Rebels with a Cause (Dobrivoie Kerpenisan) presents the unknown heroes of the Romanian Revolution of 1989.
The Man Who Would be Free / Omul care a vrut să fie liber (
Mihai Mincan,
George Chiper-Lillemark) tells the story of a rebel young man who decided to live a free life in the Communist years, in a country that was under poverty and terror.
Grup canal ’77 (Dragoș Zămosteanu) follows the case of five young anti-communists, followers of the Goma Movement, who were condemned to forced labour because they wanted to run away from the Communist “paradise”.
Palace for the People / Palat pentru popor (Boris Missirkov, Georgi Bogdanov) is a series of five mini-documentaries which evoke the opulence, grandeur and oppression manifested in the architecture of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia.
The Soviet Garden / Grădina Sovietică (Dragoș Turea) tells the truth about the secret nuclear experiments that took place in the agriculture of the Republic of Moldova, starting with the `60s until the present days.
The Distance between Me and Me / Distanța dintre mine și mine (
Mona Nicoară,
Dana Bunescu) is an ambitious documentary which makes a dialogue between the personal memory of the writer Nina Cassian and the archives from the Communist years.
Being Romanian: A Family Journal / Jurnalul familiei –escu (
Șerban Georgescu) suggests a transition from the small, individual experiences to the big events that we all took part in, in the past 100 years from the Great Union until today.
The
DocSchool competition included two documentaries anchored in the Romanian reality:
Strawberry Fields / La căpșuni (Priscilla Rasyid, Simon Frey) – produced by the Cineimpact Film Academy and
Angor Pectoris (Sophie Dascal), which was awarded at the Visions du Réel 2019 festival.
Other Romanian productions are:
Videogramele unei revoluții (
Andrei Ujică, Harun Farocki) – retraces the chronology of the days December 19 to 25, 1989, from archives images – from the thematic program
Videograms-Romania 1989; the production
Oamenii dreptății (
Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan) reveals the human face of justice, by means of a series of portraits of some young jurists. he film is included both in the thematic programme
The juridical system under a magnifying glass and in the selection
Astra Film Junior). Two other films are
Sibiu 1989 (Octavian Repede) and
George (Alexandra Coca-Cozma).
Other Romanian productions in the AFF 2019 are the three event-screenings:
Touch Me Not (
Adina Pintilie),
Siberia din Oase (Leontina Vătămanu) and
Între chin și amin (
Toma Enache). The film
Siberia din Oase shows the horrors that tens of thousands of people from Basarabia in the Stalin era and
Între chin și amin, the film about the Pitești Phenomenon, will be screened in premiere in Sibiu. After having received the Golden Bear trophy at the Berlinale 2018 and it was selected in over 150 important film festivals,
Touch Me Not will have a different exposure during AFF. The screening will be followed by an educational debate, “The Politics of the Body” and the viewers will have the chance to discuss with the film protagonists and the director Adina Pintilie, a transformative experience with focus on the communities with disabilities in Sibiu, which are invited to take part in the event.
Astra Film Festival Sibiu is under the High Patronage of the President of Romania.
Astra Film Festival 2019 is organized by Astra Film, CNM Astra and Astra Film Foundation, with the support of the Sibiu County Council, of the Ministry of Culture and National Identity and of the Romanian Film Centre. The event is co-financed by the Sibiu Local Council through the Sibiu Mayor House.
