Romania at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival

Romania will be represented in the official competition and in the Panorama section at the Berlin Film Festival

Roxana Vasile, 02.03.2021, 13:50

The first European film
festival this year has kicked off. Held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
the 71st edition of the International Berlin Festival will be held
with no red carpet and no screenings in front of public audiences. The festival
will be held in two phases: the first addressing professionals and a second one
devoted to the audience. More precisely, over March 1-5 the festival will cover
the Industry Event, including the European Film Market, the Berlinale
Co-Production Market, Berlinale Talents and World Cinema Fund sections addressing
professionals in the film industry and journalists. Only part of talks and live
workshops included in the Berlinale Talents and World Cinema Fund sections will
be available online for the larger audience. Then, over June 9-20, the Summer
Special event will address all film aficionados who will be able to watch films
selected in the 2021 edition. The awards gala will be held in a public event
held on the sidelines of Summer Special.

The international jury awarding this
year’s prizes will be made up of six filmmakers, recipients of the Golden Bear
award in previous festival editions. Among them is Adina Pintilie, who in 2018
grabbed the much-coveted award with the film Touch Me Not!. This year,
competing for the Golden Bear and Silver Bear awards will be 15 feature films,
including Romanian director Radu Jude’s latest feature, Bad Luck Banging or
Loony Porn. The film is a Romania-Luxembourg-Croatia-the Czech Republic
co-production dealing with individual relations with society, and telling the
story of a school teacher who finds her career and reputation under threat
after a personal sex tape is leaked on the Internet. We recall in 2015 Radu
Jude won the Silver Bear award for best directing with his feature, Aferim!.
This year he will be competing against prestigious film directors from Canada,
Iran, Japan, Mexico, Germany, France, Georgia, the Czech Republic, Hungary or
Qatar. The selected films were produced in times of pandemic and express
society’s sense of restlessness. The other eight sections of the Berlin Film
Festival include films featuring top international movie stars. A
Turkey-Romania coproduction has been selected for the Panorama section. (V.P.)