Romanian cinematography shone once
\nagain at the Berlin International Film Festival, one of the most important
\nevents of its kind in the world. 53-year-old Cristi Puiu, who is considered the
\ninitiator of the Romanian New Wave, won the best director award at the weekend
\nfor his latest work, entitled Malmkrog,
\nat the 70th edition of the Berlinale. The artistic director of the
\nfestival Carlo Chatrian said the Encounters sidebar, a brand new competitive section
\naimed at supporting new voices in cinema, brings together films that take the
\nchallenge of shaping a world rather than reproducing it. <\/p>\n
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In the festival’s Forum section,
\nRomania was represented by two productions by Radu Jude, Uppercase Print and The Exit
\nof the Train, the latter being a collaborative work made together with the
\nhistorian Adrian Ciofl\u00e2nc\u0103. A coproduction from Romania, Serbia,
\nSwitzerland, Sweden, Bosnia and North Macedonia, Malmkrog is seen as Puiu’s most challenging production to date and
\nhas been hailed by the international media as a great European film, even
\nheroic. The film is a period title whose script is an adaptation of Three
\nConversations (Trois entretiens) by
\nthe Russian philosopher, poet and literary critic Vladimir Solovyov who lived
\nbetween 1853 and 1900. Shot over the course of 40 days at the Apafi manor house
\nin M\u0103l\u00e2ncrav, in the heart of Romania, the film is based around five
\ncharacters. The film is shot in French, with the exception of a few lines in
\nGerman, Russian and Hungarian. The d\u00e9cor and costumes recreate the atmosphere
\nof early 20th century Transylvania. An exploration of cinema and
\nmemory is how Puiu described his work. <\/p>\n
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This is Puiu’s
\nsecond award in Berlin, having won the Golden Bear for short film back in 2004
\nfor Cigarettes and Coffee. One of Romania’s
\nmost prolific film-makers, in 2005 he won the Un Certain Regard trophy at the
\nCannes Festival and received two nominations from the European Film Academy.
\nCristi Puiu also directed Sieranevada,
\nRomania’s Oscars bid in 2017. For his cinematographic merits, he was awarded
\nthe title of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French ambassador
\nto Romania Henri Paul in 2011 and was decorated with the Order of Merit in Rank
\nof Knight by the Romanian state in 2006. <\/p>\n
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Romanian
\ncinematography is known to do very well at the Berlin Film Festival: Child’s Pose by C\u0103lin Peter Netzer won
\nthe Golden Bear in 2013; Aferim! by
\nRadu Jude won the Silver Bear in 2015; while Touch Me Not by Adina Pintilie won the Golden Bear in 2018. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cristi Puiu wins best director award in the Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":84848,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[34505,29920,19347],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-84847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-award","tag-berlinale","tag-romania"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n