Sunday, August 16, 2009

1st Romania International Film Festival News


Important news to all Romanian cinema lovers, like me!

“The Bucharest International Film Festival (BIFF) will be moved to Arad starting this year, and will be renamed Romania’s International Film Festival (Ro-IFF). It will take place during September 26–October 4 and will feature Emir Kusturica as special guest.

“We moved the festival in order to assure its continuity, first of all. If we remained in Bucharest, all our efforts and ideas would have died,” Festival Manager Cornelia Palos declared, as quoted by Mediafax. “From the very beginning, many of my colleagues did not want me in Bucharest,” she revealed. Presently at the fifth edition, the event will be entitled Romania’s International Film Festival (Ro-IFF) starting this year. One of the locations for film broadcasts during Ro-IFF will be the Old Theatre of Arad, which is also the oldest cinema hall in the country, as it served this purpose since 1903.

During the festival, short films will be broadcast in the Mayoralty Square, while documentaries and long films may be watched at the Arta and Dacia cinema theatres.

The surprise of this year’s edition of the festival will be a concert by Emir Kusturica and No Smoking Orchestra, due to be hosted by the Polyvalent Hall in Arad. Moreover, the festival will have a “Focus” section dedicated to the great director, featuring some of his films. The period of subscribing films to this year’s edition of Ro-IFF ended at the beginning of this month, and approximately 40 productions were selected so far. The list will be completed with films, which caught the producers’ attention during other similar festivals.”

I’ll be checking for more information about this fest.

No comments yet