The Transylvania International Film Festival
The 23rd Transylvania International Film Festival is taking place between 14th and 24th June in Cluj Napoca.
Corina Sabău, 22.06.2024, 14:00
The 23rd Transylvania International Film Festival is taking place between 14th and 24th June in Cluj Napoca. This year’s edition pays tribute to Japanese cinema as part of Focus on Japan, an eclectic line-up bringing together iconic Japanese productions and recent titles, as well as workshops and special programmes.
Another special programme at the festival is that dedicated to Romanian cinema, featuring some of the most relevant recent productions, including 12 feature films and 10 short films vying for the three awards of the Romanian Film Days, namely best feature film, best newcomer and best short film. A number of Romanian films that won awards last year, as well as others shown for the first time in Cluj Napoca will also be screened. Tudor Giurgiu, the president of the festival, tells us more:
“A few films will be shown in Cluj fresh from Cannes. One of them is Kinds of Kindness by Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Emma Stone, which was screened in the official competition in Cannes, and which is also part of our line-up. We will naturally also show Tree Kilometres to the End of the World by Emanuel Pârvu, the winner of Queer Palm. The film will be screened to a large audience in the city’s Union Square. We’re also happy to be able to show Todd Haynes’ May December, a film included in the Supernova sidebar. It’s a wonderful film starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore. Another famous film to be screened for the first time in Romania is All of Us Strangers by Andrew Haigh, again as part of the Supernova section. The festival’s line-up also features Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo, which was screened at the Berlin Festival. The No Limit sidebar, which is very popular, will this year contain a new section entitled Game On, in connection to the European Football Championship which is taking place during the festival. We will be screening five films with a sports theme, including Nasty, a documentary directed by me together with Cristian Pascariu and Tudor D. Popescu about the career of the former great tennis player Ilie Năstase and which I’m glad we’ll be able to also show in Cluj. It will be screened on Sunday, on 16th June, with Ilie Năstase in attendance. In the 3X3 section, the artistic director of the festival Mihai Chirilov will introduce us to three important directors: Claude Sautet, an important French film-maker, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, the revelation of the Cannes festival, and the Italian director Daniele Luchetti. Moving on to the Hungarian Films selection, I’m glad we were able to screen again Katalin Moldovai’s wonderful film Without Air. It’s a film that has won many awards and whose story was inspired by true events that took place in Turda and I hope even more people will come and see it this time around.”
Filmmakers at their first or second feature film compete for the international trophies of the 23rd Transylvania International Film Festival. Twelve productions from around the world are taking part in the race for the Transylvania Trophy and the other awards in the Official Competition, while 10 others are the contenders for the award of the “What’s Up Doc?” section. Here is Mihai Chirilov, the director of the Transylvania International Film Festival:
“Both sections are devoted to directors at their first and second film, which basically means we are trying to discover fresh talent. In the official competition, I’m happy to see two filmmakers who have already taken part in TIFF with their debut works and have already won prizes at the time, and I’m delighted that they did good the second time around. They are Carolina Markowicz, the director of “Mangal”, one of my personal favourites in 2023, who won the best director award in last year’s edition. This year, Carolina Markowicz is back with her new film, “Toll”. And there’s also the Indian filmmaker Vinothraj Palani, the author of “Pebbles,” who returned to TIFF with an amazing film, “The Adamant Girl”. I would also like to mention, as far as the international competition goes, that we have 7 debut films out of the total 12 films in this section. Worth noting is also that there is a Romanian film in the international competition, after a few years without Romanian cinema in this section. The film in question is “Where Elephants Go,” and it is the second film directed by Gabi Virginia Șarga and Cătălin Rotaru. It is a mix of genres, with melodrama, dark comedy, a meta-discussion on cinema, with extraordinary directing solutions. Fingers crossed for them, they are also the directors of “Thou shalt not kill,” the film about the crisis in the Romanian healthcare system.”
The Transylvania International Film Festival is organised by the Association for the Promotion of Romanian Cinema and the Transylvania Film Festival Association. (CM, AMP)
