The second edition of the Romanian Film Festival UK (#RFF26UK) will run a program ranging from Florin Șerban’s You Don’t Belong Here, the winner of this year’s Pardo d’oro/ Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival to a 20th-anniversary screening of a Caméra d’Or classic.
Running from November 28 – November 29 in Colchester and December 2- December 7 in London, the festival will host six Romanian directors in London to present their films and take part in Q&As with the public: Florin Șerban, Paul Negoescu, Tudor Cristian Jurgiu, Ana-Felicia Scutelnicu, Corneliu Porumboiu and Tudor Giurgiu.
Following three preview screenings in Colchester and an Opening Gala Reception on December 1 at the Rațiu Family Charitable Foundation, the festival will open to the public in London on December 2 with the UK premiere of You Don’t Belong Here, which also earned Adrian Văncică the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Actor. Șerban, whose debut If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle won the Silver Bear at the 2010 Berlinale, returns with a father-and-son drama where a small-town surgeon and single father discovers his son has been living a life he knew nothing about. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director.
December 3 will see the UK premiere of Tudor Cristian Jurgiu’s On Our Own, winner of the CICAE Art Cinema Award in the Berlinale Forum. The film follows the lives of the chosen family fourteen-year-old Flavia has gathered around her as she grows up largely on her own while her parents work in Italy. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Tudor Cristian Jurgiu.
Tudor Giurgiu’s 3 Days in September will be screened on December 4. The darkly funny romantic comedy filmed in a single, uninterrupted 65-minute take on Romania’s Black Sea coast had its world premiere in the Limelight section of the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Director Tudor Giurgiu returns to the festival for a Q&A, alongside actor Andreea Vasile.
The Romanian Canon strand of the event begins on December 5 with the 20th-anniversary screening of Corneliu Porumboiu’s 12:08 East of Bucharest, winner of the Caméra d’Or at the 2006 edition of the Cannes Festival and one of the defining films of the Romanian New Wave, followed by a Q&A with Corneliu Porumboiu.
December 6 brings a family matinee of Paul Negoescu’s Atlas of the Universe, awarded a Special Mention in Generation Kplus at the Berlinale, followed by a Q&A with the director. In the evening, the classic strand continues with a screening of Lucian Pintilie’s Reconstruction, selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 1970, introduced by Corneliu Porumboiu.
The festival will close on December 7 with Ana-Felicia Scutelnicu’s Transit Times, a portrait of a Chișinău family fighting to stay afloat in the turbulent 1990s. The film is co-produced by Cristian Mungiu’s Mobra Films and had its world premiere in the CineCoPro Competition at Filmfest München 2026. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Ana-Felicia Scutelnicu and DoP Javier Palicio.
The festival is organized by festival director Manuela R. Morar, a Romanian-British film and TV marketing professional, and artistic director Alexandru Gherman, a Romanian-American film and theatre director.
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