2010 Premiile Gopo Winners

Recently the Romanian Gopo Awards had the awards ceremony and here are the winners in the main categories. As expected the movie that sweep the awards is none other than Politist, Adjetiv by Corneliu Porumboiu.

Best Film: Politist, Adjectiv (Police, Adjetive), Corneliu Porumboiu
Best Director: Corneliu Porumboiu for Politist, Adjectiv (Police, Adjetive)
Best Actress: Hilda Péter in Katalin Varga, Peter Strickland, UK and Romania
Best Actor: Dragos Bucur in Politist, Adjectiv (Police, Adjetive)

To check winners in all categories plus the special awards go here available only in Romanian.

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.

Weekend Cu Mama (Weekend With My Mother)

This Stere Gulea movie tells a story that to my eyes is common and not really particular to a specific country that has immigration related problems, as the story belongs to any country where mothers leave younger children with relatives so they can pursue better income in other countries were they would find better lifestyles. So with this said, the film totally captured my attention because one very special performance by Adela Popescu that I couldn’t take my eyes from the screen while she was on. She totally mesmerized me and was a huge surprise to find that this is her first feature film role, as she’s better known as a Romanian soap opera actress.

The film tells the story of Luiza that comes back to Romania from Spain after leaving 15 years ago. In Spain she has a husband and children, but her sister had a stroke and decides to come back to also see her daughter Cristina and her estranged father with whom she has not speak since she got pregnant. When she arrives her brother-in-law doesn’t tell her that Cristina ran away from home. So she starts looking for her and when she finds her, Luiza not only finds a stranger young heavy drug addict with a 2-years-old girl but also finds some awful truths about what her life has been. The not happy finale is constructed by integrating a plot twist that unfortunately is so common to many countries and that particularly in this movie makes the story to lose credibility, as definitively the transition is not well developed, when everything that happens before has been.

I was really hoping to find in this movie the outstanding new Romanian cinema wave style that I highly enjoy, but unfortunately the movie as a movie looks and feel like “normal” European cinema, which definitively is not good for me. Still the style makes it a lot easier to watch for those that enjoy European cinema, as has acceptable production values, even when the script definitively needed more work to continue with the credible story until the very end.

The one thing that this movie has and for which I will recommend this movie is the performance by Adela Popescu as Cristina. Not only her transformation is remarkable (in real life she’s blonde and in the movie she has red hair that totally makes her another person) but her acting skills are really promising and definitively I’m looking forward to see her in future films. She definitively is the only reason why I highly enjoyed this film.

So if you’re in the mood to watch for entertainment purposes a shocking for some drama about the realities of life in many countries where mothers leave little children behind, then I suggest to give this movie a try as you will not be disappointed with Popescu performance, even when the story is rushed at the end.

Enjoy!!!

Watch trailer @ Movie On Companion

8th Transylvania International Film Festival Awards Winners

Recently the fest had the award ceremony and here are the award winners.

Transylvania Trophy for Best Film: (tie)
Politist, adjectiv (Police, Adjectiv) Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania, 2009
Nord (North), Rune Denstad Langlo, Norway, 2009

Best Directing Award: Barmak Akram for Kabuli Kid, France and Afghanistan, 2008
Best Cinematography Award: Philip Øgaard for Nord (North), Rune Denstad Langlo, Norway, 2009
Best Performance Award: The Entire Cast of La Nana (The Maid), Sebastian Silva, Chile and Mexico, 2008

FIPRESCI Award: Kan Door Huid Heen (Can Go Through Skin), Esther Rots, Netherlands, 2009
Audience Award: Machan, Uberto Pasolini, Italy, Germany and Sri Lanka, 2008

Romanian Days Award for Best Debut: Andrei Dăscălescu for Constantin şi Elena (Constantin and Elena), Romania and Spain, 2008 (documentary)
Special Mention: Amintiri din Epoca de Aur (Tales From the Golden Age), Ioana Uricaru, Hanno Hoefer, Razvan Marculescu, Constantin Popescu, and Cristian Mungiu, Romania, 2009

To check the award winners in all the categories go here.

8th Transylvania International Film Festival

The TIFF 09 started on May 29 and will run until June 7 at Cluj Napoca, Romania and here are the films in competition.

A Complete History of My Sexual Failures , Chris Waitt, UK, 2008 (documentary)
A Festa da Menina Morta (The Dead Girl’s Feast), Matheus Nachtergaele, Brazil, 2009
Alle Anderen (Everyone Else), Maren Ade, Germany, 2009
Amanecer de un Sueño (Awaking from a Dream), Feedy Mas Franqueza, Spain and Poland, 2008
Bahrtalo! (Good Luck!), Robert Lakatos, Hungary, Romania, Germany and Austria, 2008
J'irai dormir à Hollywood (Hollywood I’m Sleeping Over Tonight), Antoine de Maximy, France, 2008 (comedy in English and French… sort of reality show, perhaps, trailer tells me that I probably will watch)
Kabuli Kid, Barmak Akram, France and Afghanistan, 2008
La Nana (The Maid), Sebastian Silva, Chile and Mexico, 2008
Machan, Uberto Pasolini, Sri Lanka, Italy and Germany, 2008
Gitmek: Benim Marlon ve Brandom (My Marlon and Brando), Huseyin Karbey, Turkey, 2008
Nord (North), Rune Denstad Langlo, Norway, 2009
Politist, adjectiv (Police, Adjectiv) Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania, 2009

The opening film is none other than Tales from the Golden Age, produced by Christian Mungiu.

Too many comedies in the official selection for my taste, but there are many more interesting films in all the different sections. Of course the one that gets my attention is Romanian Days, but also interesting is the film that will be screen in the Dutch Female Directors section and one documentary from Iran called 7 Blind Women Filmmakers.

To check all the films go here. Claudia Cardinale, Israeli producer Menahem Golan, Romanian actor Florin Piersic, Romanian director Dan Pita, and Romanian actor Mircea Albulescu will be recieve honos and Lifetime Achievent Awards, to read the article go here. If you want to practice your Romanian (he,he… I do!), then check some videos here, and you can see Christian Mungiu talking in Ziua 1 (Day 1).

And lucky Romanians will also have the opportunity of early watching Cannes films as The Antichrist and Fanny Ardant’s Cendres et Sang (Ashes and Blood), check news here. Oh gosh, if I could only practice my Romanian in Romania!!! I almost went once, but unfortunately I lost all credit cards in Berlin (gee, very stupid incident…) and had to suspend my trip! Well, I’ll get there eventually.

I suggest you browse the fest site as there are many interesting activities and you can watch the fest live camera.

To watch some trailers from the fest go Movie On Companion