Having accomplished the near-miraculous feat of conducting two copies in person amid a global pandemic, the organizing team of the Transylvania Film Festival had been hoping life would return to normal this year — hopes that were quickly dashed when Russian forces invaded neighboring Ukraine on February 24.
TIFF founder Theodore Giorgio said the tone and content of this year’s event had rapidly changed course, as the festival’s leadership sought to strike an uneasy balance. Many people’s lives have been turned upside down. We need to be sympathetic and pay attention to what is happening there and try to reflect through the festival program this tragedy that is happening in Ukraine. ” diverse.
As TIFF kicks off its 21st edition, which will run from June 17-26, the war in Ukraine will reach the end of its fourth month, a period that has dramatically upended life in its eastern European neighbor. Both in the Romanian capital Bucharest, and in the historic medieval city of Cluj that hosts the festival, local NGOs have spent the past four months mobilizing resources to help the influx of Ukrainian refugees.
The war also had a tangible impact on preparations for this year’s festival, as the immediate economic fallout in Europe – along with persistent fears of a prolonged recession – hurt many of the funding bodies helping fund the long-running Transylvania event. . “It has been difficult to deal with all the side effects of the Ukrainian crisis,” admits Giorgio.
However, the festival has redoubled its efforts to support war-displaced Ukrainians, giving Ukrainian citizens free access to several films, including Dmytro Sokoletki-Sobchuk’s “Pamfire,” which has its world premiere in Cannes. Swear every night by directors and take part in the main competition of TIFF.
A special charity event will be organized around the screening of Ole Sentsov’s “Rhinoceros”, with all funds being donated to the Emergency Filmmakers Fund, which supports Ukrainian filmmakers displaced by the war. Other cultural events throughout the week will highlight Ukrainian music and food, as Transylvania looks to support and celebrate its eastern neighbor.
Nearly 200 feature films and shorts will be shown at this year’s Transylvania Film Festival – an increase from the previous two pandemic releases, but a slight decrease from 2019, which TIFF Artistic Director Mihai Chirilov attributes to higher license fees. However, the festival has returned to its full range of indoor and outdoor venues while relaxing Romania’s health and hygiene protocols. And after a deliberate effort to program good films in 2021 — an acknowledgment by the programming team that its pandemic-weary audience was looking for a revival — Cherylov says Transylvania has also reclaimed its old riotous spirit. “We decided to go back to our usual selves to the problematic movies,” he says.
The festival kicks off June 17 with Phyllis Nagy’s abortion rights drama “Call Jane,” starring Sigourney Weaver and Elizabeth Banks, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and screened in competition in Berlin. Among the films competing for the Transylvania Award, which was awarded to one of 12 directors for the first or second time in the main competition of the TIFF competition, Vincent Mile Cardona won the 2021 Fortnight Award for two directors that was “Magnetic Beats.” Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson’s “Beautiful Objects”, which debuted in Panorama of the Berlinale; and three Sundance debuts from this year’s festival in Park City: “The Babysitter” by Mona Shukri, Alejandro Luisa Grisi’s “Utama” and Laszlo Tsuga and Anna Nimes’ song “Gentle”.
One notable shift in programming this year is the long-running documentary series What Up, Doc? , which for the first time will be a competitive division. It is an acknowledgment not only of the genre’s growing importance in the contemporary film scene, but also of the ways in which shape shifts and mutations increasingly reflect the way we see and consume the world around us.
“This new kind of documentary is more and more manipulative of fiction, purposefully breaking rules, and even indulging in the luxury of blasphemy and conspiracy,” Cherilov says. “At the risk of upsetting purists, almost anything is done in What Up, Doc?, including those films that blur the line between fiction and documentary to the point that labels become unplayable and you no longer know exactly what you’re looking at, what’s real and what He is not, and why.”
Throughout the week, open discussions will be programmed alongside films that tackle hot issues, such as abortion rights in Nagy’s “Call Jane,” police brutality and corruption in Jan P. Putin’s Russia in Daniel Roher’s “Navalny.” Cherilov insists that this is not an effort to “check the boxes” by addressing the issues of the day, but is part of the festival’s long-standing desire to “encourage debate, debate, and dialogue.
“We live in a world where people are used to thinking in black and white, and no one listens to anyone’s point of view,” he continues. “TIFF was from the start a platform for dialogue – encouraging every voice to be heard, urging conflict of opinion. This is the true spirit of the festival.”
This spirit extends to the programming team’s decision to resist persistent calls to boycott Russian films. Among the entries in the competition is Lado Kavatania’s psychological thriller The Execution, one of several Russian titles to be shown in Transylvania. “We do not believe in canceling people out. We do not believe in closing votes,” Cherilov says. “We believe that dialogue can solve more than abolition.”
Giorgio says the festival leadership did not take its decision seriously, with TIFF eventually following the lead at the Cannes Film Festival and others – including Venice and Karlovy Vary – which banned official Russian delegations while allowing individual filmmakers to participate.
Giorgio says, citing the example of “Fugitive Captain Volkonogov” by directors Natasha Merkulova and Alexei Chubov, which premiered in competition at last year’s Venice Film Festival. We are not advocates…[having] Radical attitude towards the abolition of all films, all filmmakers. I think we should be more reasonable.”
The decision is in keeping with the genetics of a festival whose provocative and iconic programs have long championed artistic expression, born as it was from the turbulent era of post-communist Romania, when civil liberties and artistic freedom were far from guaranteed.
More than two decades later, the festival faces other threats – practical and existential – that must be confronted. Global broadcasting services have transformed the exhibition industry and undermined the very experience of cinema that film festivals such as Transylvania so enthusiastically promote. The war in Ukraine continues to cast a shadow over Europe and the rest of the world. No matter how much it has faded from recent headlines, the coronavirus pandemic has entered its third year, with new variables continuing to frustrate efforts to return to pre-pandemic life — a status quo that may never return.
Yet such challenges have only emphasized the importance of personal events that have always been on some level an act of faith in our desire – indeed, the need – to come together. “Festivals are a celebration of cinema, a great occasion where directors and actors can meet their audiences,” says Giorgio. “I think the role of festivals [in the future] It would be necessary to display certain types of movies that would be lost on a major streaming platform.
“I am more and more convinced that a festival like Transylvania will not grow in size but will grow exponentially in importance – for filmmakers, but also for the audience. It will be a unique moment of the year where you can find those gems, where you can meet your heroes.”
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