Between October 23 and November 1, Elvire Popesco Cinema, Romanian Peasant Museum Cinema, the Auditorium Hall of the National Museum of Art of Romania, and Apollo 111 will host the festival’s 17th edition in Bucharest.
In Timișoara, audiences are invited to Studio Cinema and Timiș Cinema from October 22 to October 25. The festival continues in Arad, with screenings at Arta Cinema from October 28 to October 31. In Oradea, the films will be screened at Cinema Palace from October 29 to November 1; additionally, on October 29, the Crișana Museum (Muzeul Țării Crișurilor) will host a special screening of Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. The festival tour concludes in Iași, where the public is invited to Ateneu Cinema from November 6 to November 8.
Sebastian Stan in Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord Photo: Voodoo Films
Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, this year’s Palme d’Or winner, will be screened on October 24, in a simultaneous showing across all participating cinemas in Bucharest and the rest of the country. That same evening in Bucharest, the film will also have a gala screening at the Romanian Athenaeum.
The festival’s program will also include Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur, the winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes and France’s submission for the Oscars. The film follows the downfall of a wealthy Russian CEO whose life is destabilized by professional pressures, the war in Ukraine, and suspicions of his wife’s infidelity.
German filmmaker Valeska Grisebach’s The Dreamed Adventure, winner of this year’s Jury Prize in Cannes, will have the local premiere at Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest. The film follows Veska as she attempts to help an old friend recover a car stolen in the mountains of Bulgaria.
Also making its Romanian premiere at Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest will be Emmanuel Marre’s A Man of His Time, winner of the Best Screenplay award at Cannes. Henri Marre is a writer who arrives in Vichy in 1940 with a political manuscript, seeking a position within Pétain’s new regime. His desire for influence draws him into the game of collaboration, where personal ambition clashes with moral compromise.
Still from La Bola Negra Photo: Voodoo Films
La Bola Negra, directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, won the award for Best Director in Cannes, sharing the honor with Fatherland, directed by Paweł Pawlikowski. Both films are part of the festival’s program. A queer period drama, La Bola Negra intertwines the stories of three men from different generations against the backdrop of key moments in Spanish history, from the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship to the present day. Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland, set during the Cold War, focuses on the relationship between the writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller), an actress, writer, and rally driver, as they embark on a journey across a Germany in ruins.
Another film premiering at the festival is Soudain, directed by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi and starring Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto, joint winners of the Best Actress award at Cannes.
Lukas Dhont’s Coward, for which actors Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne received the Best Actor award, will also screen at the festival, as will Marine Atlan’s feature-film debut La Gradiva, co-written with Anne Brouillet. The film, winner of the Grand Prize at Semaine de la Critique, follows a group of French high school students who travel to Pompeii, where the ruins and the weight of history trigger emotional turmoil, desires, and conflicts.
The full program of the festival will be announced in the coming period. Tickets will go on sale through the Eventbook network in early October. Tickets for the Romanian premiere of Fjord will go on sale on October 1.
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