February 25, 2018
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Newsroom, 25.02.2018, 14:01
AWARD Romanian director Adina Pintilie’s debut feature film ‘Touch Me Not’ on Saturday night reaped the Golden Bear award at the 68th edition of the Berlin Film Festival, one of the world’s most prestigious events of this kind. Adina Pintilie has also reaped a prize for the best debut, from a jury, which also included Romanian director Calin Peter Netzer. ‘Touch Me Not’ is a personal exploration that cast a question mark over the preconceived ideas about intimacy as a fundamental aspect of human existence. This European co-production, was shot over a period of 10 weeks, between 2015 and 2017 and had a mixed cast of professional actors and common people. Adina Pintilie has become the second Romanian director to have reaped the Berlinale’s grand prize after Calin Peter Netzer for his production Child’s Pose.
FUND A draft law on setting up the Sovereign Fund for Development and Investment will be debated upon by the specialized committees in Romania’s Senate next week. The fund has been designed as a financing instrument for strategic development projects in key-fields such as infrastructure, energy, healthcare, agriculture and is also to create fresh jobs. The fund imitates similar instruments operational in Norway, France and Poland. During the entire period of its functioning, the Romanian state will be the fund’s unique shareholder, under the administration of the Finance Ministry. In order to create it, the state will be taking over shares in 89 companies so the dividends will not go to the budget by will be annually feeding the fund.
VISIT Romania’s Prime Minister Viorica Dancila on Tuesday will be paying a formal visit to Chisinau, in the ex-soviet Romanian-speaking Republic of Moldova. High on the Prime Minister’s agenda are talks with her Moldovan counterpart, Petru Filip, on strengthening cooperation between the two governments. The head of the Romanian diplomacy, Teodor Melescanu has recently said this is the first bilateral visit the new Romanian minister is paying to the neighboring country, being a clear signal of the priority Bucharest attaches to the relations with the Republic of Moldova. According to Melescanu, during the visit, a bilateral contract for the construction of a pipeline in the Republic’s western part will be signed as well as a cultural cooperation protocol between Romania and the Republic of Moldova.
WEATHER Winter seems to have arrived in Romania at the end of the season with code yellow and orange alerts issued for most of the regions. A code orange alert for bad weather will be in place for Bucharest and 27 other counties in the south, east and center on Sunday night. Temperatures are to plunge to minus 22 degrees mainly at night, while during the day they are expected to be 10-15 degrees below the multianual average. Blizzards are also expected to lower the real-feel temperature. This wave of cold is believed to last until March 1st. Bucharest’s mayor, Gabriela Firea, has announced that schools will be closed on Monday and Tuesday because of the bad weather. Maximum temperatures will range between — 12 and — 2 degrees Celsius. The noon reading in Bucharest was — 3 degrees.
REPATRIATION A Romanian citizen has been safely repatriated from Iraq via the Erbil-Istanbul-Bucharest route, the Romanian Foreign Ministry has today announced. The authorities have granted consular assistance in this case by issuing the necessary travel documents and taking all the measures needed for repatriation. The Romanian Foreign Ministry is continuing efforts to evacuate the Romanian citizens from Iraq by keeping a permanent connection both with them and with the competent authorities in the region. A travel warning for those who want to travel to the region has been posted on the Romanian Foreign Ministry’s webpage.
translated by bill
