Discoveries from Romania World Cinema

While traveling to Maramures, Sara comes across Doina who offers her to stay at her place. They both have a glass of wine when they start hearing sounds of people dancing from the forest.

After getting pregnant and being forced to pursue the life that her parents arranged for her, a young girl chooses to follow her impulses.

A young man flees from the authorities in May 1944 until he reaches a house where he can find some help.

Short, drama

Responding to a poem by Romanian writer Maria Banuș (1914-1999), a sound artist and a visual artist illustrate a meal tainted by terror. An enveloping, claustrophobic tension descends on a family dinner, distorting the comfort of a domestic ritual. The sounds and smears of graphite and charcoal strokes amplify the dread described in the poem.

A study, in the form of an experimental film, on a couple's relationship in which the sentimental distance is increased by the forced approach in a confined space.

On the night before Easter, a priest has to bring the Holy Fire from Jerusalem to his rural church. The closer he gets to the destination, the darker the night becomes.

Stunt coordinator Stefan is forced out of the Institute of Fine Arts for voicing anti-regime views, is pursued and interrogated by the Securitate, and suffers the loss of his friend Stavros during the 1977 earthquake rescue. After illegally emigrating, he returns post-1989 to uncover shocking truths about the very officials who once investigated him.

A young woman, Ioana, appears in a commercial for adolescents and her family is scandalized because of the erotic content. She leaves home and tries to take life on her own. Ioana realizes that she has become a small celebrity, with the status and benefits, but placed in inconvenient situations.

Forestry workers isolated by winter on a mountaintop. Loves, longings, nostalgias and vital questions. From the first film, Cărmăzan reveals his inclination towards a certain magical surrealism that he later develops.

An impressive visual and sonorous experience through the meanders of the Danube, from its delta in the Black Sea to Serbia, in search of the gypsy people (or the Roma) and their music and culture.

A romantically embellished biopic of Ecaterina Teodoroiu, a Romanian woman who fought and died in World War I.

Mircea, an old employee at the National Company of Motorways and National Roads wants to get George - his nephew - hired at the same company. The job consists of manually counting all the cars passing on the national roads for some EU statistics, but they both have different opinions about their work and eventually their friendship turns into a conflict.

The family car must be sold immediately. The wife meets with a high-school friend, now working at an auto park. The husband remains home waiting. He tries to call her several times as the night grows darker.

In 1959, in Romania, six former members of the nomenclature and the secret police organize a hold up of the National Bank. After their arrest, the state forces them to play themselves in a film which reconstitutes the crime and the investigation. At the end of their trial, filmed live, they are sentenced to death and executed. except the women, Monica Sevianu that due to the fact that she had 2 children she was punished to do hard work for life.

The film presents documents, photos, and pictures of the places where Mihai Eminescu, Veronica Micle, and Ion Creangă lived and the things they experienced.

Adapted from the sketch by Ion Luca Caragiale. A fine irony on pre-war politicism, which manages, through gastronomic means, to ridicule an entire political class.

Student film

A young man attempts to find out the origin of the mysterious message written on his chest after a drunken night out.

Year 141 after Christ, in the Roman province of Dacia. An unusual appearance of a comet is observed on the night sky. The astrologers think it is a bad sign that will bring misfortune and death. In these frightening days, a deadly epidemic among cantoned soldiers spreads in a Roman fort (on the border of Dacia Province). Doctors are overcome by the situation. No one knows the cause of this disease and the number of deaths is steadily increasing. Four Roman explorers, led by the experienced Centurion Marcus - (along with his comrades Aquila, Tertius and Nerva) is sent by the commander of the fort - Prefect Cornelius Fulvius on a special mission to the unknown and unconquered territories beyond empire's border, those ruled by the Free Dacians, to find an unusual solution to this plague.

An experimental art animation.

In a dystopian world set during World War II, a couple flees from an invisible but present enemy. A terminal point for humanity, where no one seems to know where to go or from which direction death may strike them.

A fatalistic poet meets a young and quirky painter who makes the unwise decision to fall in love with him. She lets the connection between them grow, even if it might be just a trap.

Discover the unmistakable humor in "Life Tips" with Mihai Bobonete! A stand-up show full of irony and humor about everyday life and its absurdities.

This is one of hundreds of so-called „ephemeral” films produced by the documentary studio in the wake of serious accidents on Romania’s roads. As was always the case in such films, the guilty party is the driver himself – one of the aims of this category of film was to assign unequivocal guilt. Yet, what makes this coarse lesson, brought to life by actors and non-professionals, more relevant today than it was at the time of its production is its ability to capture more than the event itself and thereby to provide us with a glimpse of the period in which it was produced.

Ion Marin writes a letter to the editor of his local newspaper extolling the virtues of collective agriculture.

The film's protagonists are the orphaned children taken into custody by the state and institutionalized at Children's House no. 6 from Bucharest. For Mészáros, the concern for the situation of children left orphaned during the Second World War is autobiographical: the director directly experienced the absence of parents in her own childhood.

It's no surprise that no one ever celebrated Mrs. Buica - her worldly accomplishments were raising a family and surviving a bad marriage. But she did play the hand she was dealt with brutal honesty and fierce humor. We watch her grapple with 24 years of family dysfunction in both Romania and The United States - by the end, we can't help but celebrate the life of Mrs. Buica

A short documentary in which three pairs of robots take us through their learning process, revealing the limitations of their algorithmic visions.

A playful study of cinematic perspective x 3: three cameras, three screens, I, You, Witness.

The short documentary gives a glimpse into the life of one of the last very isolated and archaic settlements in the Romanian mountains. It is a portrait of a place where life has a different meaning and time has another pace. In a world that is more and more driven by fast gains by any means, the Hill and its people appear to be one of the last enclaves hidden from time, where man has still a deep connection to nature, his land and animals. Life is simple and rough, the land is imposing its own rules, but people preserve a sense of freedom and serenity almost forgotten by the modern man.

I Talk Otherwise is a movie about a journey along the Danube seen from the viewpoint of the river itself. It has been shooted in 8 countries and 9 languages, from West to East, from Capitalism to Communism, from the Black Forest to the Black Sea, flowing between the mixtures, the rafts, and the cultural contradictions of the lands crossed by the great river. Conceived as a road movie, it trails the river from its source in Germany, across Austria and some former Communist countries - Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania - all the way to its mouth in the Black Sea, on a journey from the past to the future of the Europe.

In a Zimbabwean township facing the drying up of the river, three children witness the arrival of a strange visitor who claims to come from the future. Loveness, a brave little albino girl, seizes the opportunity and saves the goddess of water, trapped in the knot of time.

An animated fairy tale movie about the funny adventures of a bear cub who went to congratulate his uncle and present him with a cake.

A short film about love, obsession and delusion, with a strong contemporary dance element.

Two Romanian boys roam around an abandoned building looking for metal to sell to a scrap dealer. The camera accompanies them as they explore spaces in the empty building, they discover the floors of the building are covered with a sea of thick old files. There doesn’t seem to be much left worth taking, as the building has been stripped to the bone already

After a play of the same name by Gheorghe Ciprian.

8 minutes is the time it takes to fly from Switzerland to Germany. 8 minutes is the time light takes to travel from the Sun to the Earth. 8 minutes radically changed Andrew's life.

Following the death of his wife, a father is trying to take care of his daughter, amidst a murder mystery which concerns both of them.

Luca and Otilia,two young people just beginning their lives, move in the big city, helped by their childhood friend, Vlad. They rent a flat in an old building, in which only one old man lives, Felix. The flat has a peculiar past: a former tenant, Irina, disappeared mysteriously 6 months ago. One night, after a big fight, Luca falls asleep in the living room and leaves Otilia alone in the bedroom. During the night, Luca hears the scream of his wife coming from the bedroom. Scared, Luca goes to the room where he had heard the scream from. He notices that his wife has disappeared, just like the previous tenant, without any warning. A crazy game begins: Luca has to find out what happened to his wife and face the accusations that others bring on him, especially to Vlad's, who was in love with Otilia.

An adaptation of a fairy tale written by Carmen Sylva, the pen name of the Queen of Romania.

The story of Victor, a 45-year-old rocker, whose love for his son Florin go beyond what is socially and morally acceptable. The father's everyday life is orbiting around his son, a drug addict.

A university lectop finds himself embroiled in a nasty blackmail case. Powerful businessman Busoni is preparing a stab at the grain market. This Protar scam should enrich him, but an article by a university professor changes his plans.

Short film from the Delta Space Mission film series. A giant tornado pulls the Delta spaceship into the endless ocean of a strange planet.

Three Scientists stand on the brink of a quantum-mechanics breakthrough that could redefine reality itself. Tensions build as these men reckon with the discoveries they are making.

Inspired by the ballad of Baba Novac, the film tells the story of the Novacești people, a family of brave warriors who are caught in the fight between the Turks and Romanians in the 16th century.