Cinematik will focus on contemporary Romanian cinema. Director Radu Jude will receive special tribute.

Each year, the Cinematik International Film Festival pays special attention to the contemporary cinema of a particular European country as part of its rich programme. During its 19th edition, which will take place in Piešt’any from 10 to 15 September 2024, it will shine a spotlight on the work of Romanian filmmakers. A special tribute will be given to Radu Jude, one of the most prolific and award-winning European contemporary directors. His retrospective should not be missed in the Respect section.

Radu Jude is one of the most important and prolific contemporary European directors. His films speak with an uncompromising, unique voice and he brings a raw, unbridled energy to them, often spiced with raw black humour. His work ranges from political to philosophical films that are in-depth probes into Romania’s dark past. But they also reflect its present. This truly revolutionary artist combines high art with low art, always viewing both with the same critical, unrelenting gaze.

Radu Jude was assistant director on Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr Lazarescu (Moartea domnului Lazarescu, 2005), which marked the beginning of the New Romanian Cinema, a phenomenon that put Romanian cinema on the world map. He directed several short films and later moved on to feature films, debuting with The Happiest Girl in the World (Cea mai fericita fata din lume, 2009), followed by Everybody in Our Family (Toata lumea din familia noastra, 2012). Among his best-known films are Aferim! (2015), an adventure western set in Eastern Europe in 1835. The director won the Silver Bear for directing at the Berlinale IFF and Cinematik visitors will also be able to see it.

The director’s films Scarred Hearts (Inimi cicatrizate, 2016), I Don’t Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians (Îmi este indiferent daca în istorie vom intra ca barbari, 2018) and Uppercase Print (Tipografic majuscul)  have also been included in the retrospective screening of Respect: Radu Jude. As well as The Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Babardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc, 2021), for which Jude won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, and Don’t Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Nu astepta prea mult de la sfârsitul lumii, 2023), awarded the Jury Prize at the Locarno Film Festival. The director’s documentary work will be represented in the show’s programme by the titles The Dead Nation (2017), an award-winning essay depicting a stunning collection of photographs of a Romanian town in the 1930s and 1940s, and Trains Leaving the Station (Iesirea trenurilor din gara, 2020), co-directed with Radu Jude by Adrian Cioflâncã, which traces the tragic fate of the Jewish inhabitants of the town of Jassy during the 1941 pogroms.

Modern Romanian cinema is also shaped by a number of other interesting and internationally renowned names. It is a new generation of filmmakers who are distancing themselves from the cinematic legacy of hyperbole and metaphor and anchoring their narratives of contemporary reality in a naturalistic, minimalist form. In the section Magnified: Romania, the audience will be able to see the best of their work at Cinematik.

For example, it will also be the movie Boss (2023). In it, director Bogdan Mirica tells the story of an ambulance driver from Bucharest who, along with three other men he barely knows, takes part in an armed robbery. In Horia (2023), director Ana Maria Comanescu tells the story of a troubled teenager who sets off across the country on his father’s old motorbike to meet his love.

Directed by Paulo Negoescu, Men of Deeds (Oameni de treaba, 2022) follows the fate of a lone police chief in the Romanian-Moldovan border region who, in an attempt to be part of the action around him, becomes a champion of justice and punishes anyone who breaks the law. Mrs. Buica (2023), on the other hand, is an intimate docudrama in which director Eugene Buică captures the breakdown of his parents’ marriage.

The contemporary face of Romanian society is reflected in Eugen Jebeleanu’s Poppy Field (Câmp de maci, 2020) – the protagonist is Cristi, a young police officer from Bucharest who hides his homosexuality to avoid disgrace among his colleagues. It is a dramatisation of a real case of police brutality that shook Romanian society. Also a thriller, To the North (2022), debut director Mihai Mincan based his film on a true incident from 1996, when a Romanian stowaway hid on a transatlantic liner, relying only on the help of a deeply religious Filipino sailor.

In the section dedicated to Romanian cinema, the audience will also see the art-house, dystopian-gothic film Mammalia (2023), in which Sebastian Mihailescu explores patriarchy; Întregalde (2021), a psychological drama in which Radu Muntean explores the limits of empathy and generosity through the story of an unexpected encounter between three aid workers in a broken-down car and a disoriented elderly man; and The Island (2021), in which director Anca Damian retells the story of Robinson and Fiver in the context of a contemporary world where everyone is searching for their own paradise.

The ten outstanding films in the show are rounded off by the documentary Between Revolutions (Intre revolutii, 2023), about the deep friendship between students Zahra and Maria, who met in Bucharest in the 1970s. They have not given up contact with each other, even when Zahra is forced to leave her friend due to the political situation in her native Iran. All of the films in Magnified: Romania section have got screenings and awards at prestigious film festivals around the world, and many of them will be seen by Slovak audiences at Cinematik for the very first time .