12th Transilvania International Film Festival

The 12th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival took place from May 31 to June 9 in Cluj-Napoca, the ancient capital of Transilvania, a historical region in the central part of Romania, surrounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range. It is presented by the Romanian Film Promotion. Founded in 2002, TIFF is the first international feature film festival in Romania. It has become a well-known brand in Romania, not only for the outstanding films screened every year, but also for the effective organization, sparkling atmosphere and density of events, from seminars, workshops and panels to fabulous concerts and crazy all-night parties. During the festival’s previous editions, important personalities in European and world cinema have been present. Lifetime Achievement Awards have been given to Julie Delpy, Michael Radford, Annie Girardot, Udo Kier, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero, Nicolas Roeg, Catherine Deneuve, Claudia Cardinale, Wim Wenders, Jacqueline Bisset, and Geraldine Chaplin. This year the Awards were presented to British director Stephen Frears (not present) and Czech filmmaker Jirí Menzel.

There were ten days of special screenings, national and international premieres, workshops and masterclasses by important industry guests, concerts, exhibitions, and much more: 190 films from 53 countries and over 700 guests. There were three competitive sections.

Twelve young directors competed for the Transilvania trophy. This edition focused on first-time directors: ten of the titles were by directors making their feature directorial debut. The films in this section came from Saudi Arabia, Uruguay, Poland, Sweden, USA, Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, India, Slovakia, and Japan.

In the Shadows Shorts section, there were twelve short thriller, horror and sci-fi films, including the Romanian film The End, by Marius Rosu. The shorts were screened before the movies in competition; some of these were very interesting and much appreciated by the public.

Last year’s phobia about the end of the world inspired the theme of this year’s edition, which was titled “This is the End”. The twelve films competing for the FIPRESCI award focused, in different ways, on personal or world apocalypses. Obviously this was not a very optimistic section, but some films dealt with the subject of apocalypse in a less somber fashion. (Furio Fossati)

Transilvania International Film Festival: www.tiff.ro