Lucian's Blog

Some of the readers of this blog may have noticed we are covering one of the growing Film Festivals in Eastern Europe, "Transylvania International Film Festival", taking place in June each year. In 2007, the festival will be present in Sibiu, the European cultural capital of 2007. Open space projections and the presence of an office in the city's square will ensure the presence of the festival in the environment of cultural manifestations in Sibiu.

Between June 1st and 10th, TIFF 2007 will take place in the regular space, "Republica" cinema, in Mihai Viteazu Sqare. The categories of the Festival remain the same: "Competition", "Supernova", "3X3", "What’s Up, Doc?", "Shaddows" and "Romanian Film Days".

The Romanian presence will be a central point in the festival. After the success of "How Did I Spent The End of the World" and "13:05: East of Bucharest" last year, this year's Romanian production will include "3 Months, 4 Weeks and 2 Days - Memories from the Golden Age"" (d. Radu Muntean, the director also in charge with making each year's festival logo), a film also present in the official competition at Cannes Festival this year. Cristian Nemescu, a Romanian director tragicly killed last year in a car accident will have his last film presented in TIFF, California Dreamin'. In the short films category, we'll have "The Lamp with the Hat" (d. Radu Jude), "The Water" (d. Constantin Popescu Jr) and "Don't you mind, but..." (d. Adina Pintilie). In this section will have documentaries exploring techniques of manipulation (in "Manufacturing Dissent") or the way in which the movies come to be rated ("No Body is Perfect"). Death and its proximity will be revealed in a Israeli documentary "Cemetery Club", as well as the death of simple economic enterprises in globalization era in "The Big Sellout".

In "No Limits" section, we'll have the opportunity to see "Shortbus", as well as the star of the film, Sook-yin Lee, in flesh and bones (hopefully). Shocking as always, this section will include "Electroma", "So Lange du hier bist", "The Bridge", "Another Gay Movie", "The Whispering of Gods", showing us images of drama, suicide, sexual behavior and much more.

A new section, "Walking along" will consists in productions that have only two characters speaking to each other. The rest is just inside our minds.

The festival will be covered, as we did last year. Log on to www.habitusnetwork.org/blog to see day-to-day coverage.

Lucian Dragos