Shining through a long, dark night

Every now and then in film a tangible if invisible phenomenon, a “talent cloud,” descends upon a nation, and its filmmakers turn out impressive numbers of wonderful films that reinvigorate the medium. Such has been the case with the remarkable Romanian “new wave” of the past five or six years. After the crowning achievement of last year’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days — winner of both the Grand Prize at Cannes and Felix for Best Film — Romanian cinema has been, deservedly, the talk of critics and bloggers, as well as avid moviegoers.

Yet, few if any movements in film don’t have solid roots in the past. The great achievements of Romania’s emerging filmmakers such as Cristi Puiu, Cristian Mungiu, Ruxandra Zenide were foreshadowed by earlier generations — Liviu Ciulei, Lucian Pintilie, Dan Pita, Mircea Daneliuc, Alexandru Tatos, among others. With Shining Through a Long, Dark Night, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, in collaboration with the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, brings together many of the finest recent Romanian films with a selection of key films from the pre-1989 Romania cinema.

For a listing of the films that will be screened between April 16th and 27th, go to Program Overview.

Source: Film Society of Lincoln Center

4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days

The setting for this grippingly horrible movie is Romania, in 1987: that is, two years before Nicolae Ceausescu was executed, but nine years after he was awarded an honorary knighthood by the Labour government of James Callaghan - and 20 years after he had outlawed abortion in Romania to increase the birth rate. It all seems at once a very distant and very recent era, and I can't think of a film that has shown life in the eastern bloc more fiercely than this; without ever being overtly political, it makes you feel humanity itself being coarsened and degraded by the state. In recent memory, we've seen The Lives of Others and Good Bye Lenin!, which affected to be about the last days of European communism, and they have been very effective in their own differing ways, but outclassed and made to look lenient and inauthentic by this brutal masterwork.

Read here the continuation of this article, signed by Peter Bradshaw and published on January 11, 2008 by The Guardian.

Golden Bear to Romanian short film

During the 58th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) - February 7-17, 2008 - the members of the international short film jury Marc Barbé, Ada Solomon and Laura Tonke awarded The Golden Bear for Best Short Film to O zi buna de plaja by the Romanian director Bogdan Mustata.

New Wave on the Black Sea

Read here the most interesting 6-page article by A. O. Scott, film critic at The Times, published on January 20th 2008 at The New York Times - one of the best analysis of today's Romanian cinema written by a foreign critic, who came to Bucharest and talked personally with the country's main film directors.

How do you say "Oscar Scandal" in Romanian?

Have a look here at the film critic Scott Foundas' article from January 15th 2008 published at L.A. Weekly about the absence of the Romanian movie "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" by Cristian Mungiu among the shortlisted films for this year's Foreign Language Oscar. This is one of numerous recent critics to the selection criteria used by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles.

Coppola attends the première of his latest movie in Bucharest

The film “Youth without youth” by Francis Ford Coppola had on October 23rd the gala screening in Bucharest, only three days after the world first from the Rome Festival.

The event was attended by the director together with part of the Romanian production team. Francis Ford Coppola, the maker of the famous trilogy “The Godfather,” of “Apocalypse Now” and of the well-known film about Dracula, was accompanied by his wife and his son.

An adaptation of the homonymous short story of Mircea Eliade, the script of the film is written, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, marking his return to authoring his own films, alongside a production and direction team consisting chiefly of Romanians. Coppola thought to shoot “Youth without youth” as if at the beginning of his career, with a small budget and a young team who worked together with him 14-15 hours a day, for six months. “The team was very young and enthusiastic, eager to adapt to the only possible method to shoot this film,” stressed the director.

This is the first film of Coppola in the last ten years. According to the New York Times, the film is a mixture of genres. Initially, the story of professor Dominic Matei (played by Tim Roth), which begins in Bucharest in 1938, is similar to an espionage thriller from WW II. But the political plot dissipates as Matei falls in love with a young woman who seems able to travel back in time, and the film becomes a strange combination of love, mystery and philosophical speculation.

Source: George Grigoriu's article on Nine O'Clock

Picture: Romania Libera

Palme d'or décernée au roumain Cristian Mungiu

Le jury du 60^e Festival de Cannes a décerné, dimanche 27 mai au soir, la Palme d'or à un film roumain, 4 mois, 3 semaines et 2 jours, en tête d'un palmarès qui braque résolument les projecteurs sur le cinéma d'auteur le plus exigeant.

Ce palmarès ignore en revanche totalement des habitués de la Croisette tels que Quentin Tarantino, Emir Kusturica, Wong Kar-wai ou les frères Coen, alors que le film de ces derniers, No Country for Old Men, était souvent donné favori par les rumeurs.

"Pour moi, c'est un peu un conte de fées", a commenté le réalisateur de 4 mois, 3 semaines et 2 jours, dont le sacre est également celui d'un jeune cinéma roumain qui s'impose comme l'un des plus créatifs sur la scène internationale. "J'espère que cette Palme d'or sera une bonne nouvelle pour les petits cinéastes des petits pays, car il semble enfin qu'on n'ait plus besoin de gros budgets et de grandes stars pour faire une histoire que tout le monde écoutera", a-t-il poursuivi.

Cristian Mungiu, 39 ans, avait été remarqué dès son premier long métrage, Occident, présenté en 2002 dans le cadre de la Quinzaine des réalisateurs. Stylistiquement épuré, son deuxième film, au maigre budget de 600 000 euros, est un récit cru et puissant d'un avortement interdit sous le régime communiste.

source: Le Monde

Romanian novel becomes Coppola movie

Marking the return of substantial filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola to his homeland after ten years, "Youth Without Youth", his first effort since 1997's "The Rainmaker", will make its world premiere at Italy's 2nd annual RomaCinemaFest held this year on October 18-27.

"This film represents a new period in my career, where I intend to make only personal films," Coppola remarked. "I look forward to showing it at this new festival in Italy, whose great masters such as Rossellini, Fellini, Visconti, Pasolini and Antonioni inspired my early career."

Also written by Coppola, the WWII-set is an adaptation of the Romanian author Mircea Eliade novel which focuses on an elderly professor whose apparent immortality makes him a target of the Nazis. Tim Roth is toplining with Alexandra Maria Lara, Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Pirici, Marcel Iures, and Andre Hennicke co-starring.

source: Aceshowbiz