Romanian Film Festival Comes to SIFF this November
By: A.A. Cristi Oct. 16, 2017
The American Romanian Cultural Society (ARCS) is thrilled to announce the lineup for Seattle's 4th Annual Romanian Film Festival held at the SIFF Uptown Cinema. In collaboration with the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), ARCS presents eight feature films as well as two pre-festival events.
On November 10th famed Transylvanian singer Gavril T?rmure joins Lucian Ban's ELEVATION jazz quartet for a performance at the Seattle Art Museum (in collaboration with Earshot Jazz). On November 16th author Monica Filimon discusses director Cristi Puiu's contribution to contemporary Romanin film at a free book event on the UW Campus. Film stills and press photos are available online at the link above. Interviews are available upon request.
ARCS is a Seattle-based non-profit that promotes a better understanding of Romania's rich culture and traditions by organizing community-building educational, visual, performance, and literary arts events.
Songs from Afar - in collaboration with Earshot Jazz Festival
November 10, 2017 at 7:30 pm
Tickets $17-$35
Seattle Art Museum
Celebrating the music of Romania this concert event is an amalgamation of Transylvanian folk with jazz and improvisation. Featuring Transylvanian singer Gavril T?rmure and Lucian Ban's ELEVATION Quartet with Abraham Burton (tenor sax), Billy Hart (drums), Mat Maneri (viola) and Brad Jones (bass). Angela Draghicescu Ensemble open the evening by paying tribute to famed composer George Enescu with a new arrangement of the Romanian Rhapsody.
Book Signing & Romanian Film Event: Cristi Puiu by Monica Filimon
November 16, 2017, 6:30 PM
FREE
Univ of WA Seattle Campus, The Ellison Center / Thomson Hall Room 317
New York-based film critic, and professor, Monica Filimon will sign copies of her new book on Cristi Puiu (University of Illinois Press 2017). She talks about the beginnings of New Romanian Cinema with a specific focus on black comedy The Death of Mr. L?z?rescu. In Cristi Puiu, Filimon explores the works of an artist dedicated to truth not as an abstract concept, but as the ephemeral revelation of the fuller ungraspable world beyond the screen.
Romanian Film Festival - in collaboration with SIFF
November 17-19, 2017
All Festival Pass $75 (SIFF Members $55)
Opening Night Gala $25 (includes post-film traditional Romanian reception)
General Admission $14 (students, SIFF members, seniors $9)
All screenings at SIFF Cinema Uptown (in lower Queen Anne)
Opening Night Gala - November 17, 7:00 pm
Two Lottery Tickets (comedy)
Director Paul Negoescu (1h26 min, 2016)
Guests in attendance: director-Paul Negoescu
Three men from a provincial town are in urgent need of money and decide to buy a lottery ticket. They win the lottery, but soon after their ticket gets stolen. The three desperate men go on a journey to find their lost lottery ticket and experience all kinds of adventures. The screenplay is based on a short story by Romanian author I.L. Caragiale.
November 18, 11:00am
The Rest is Silence (drama)
Director Nae Caranfil (1h54 min, 2007)
In 1911 the Romanian film director Grigore Brezianu and the financial tycoon Leon Popescu made a two hour long movie together titled "Romania's Independence." This was their attempt at making a faithful screen adaptation of the real Independence War fought in 1877. The Rest in Silence is the loose half-fictionalized story of this movie making experience.
November 18, 1:20 pm
This Baba (documentary)
A production of Seattle's Bulgarian Cultural and Heritage Center
Director Bogdan Darev (31 min, 2014)
Guests in attendance: Seattle-based director-Bogdan Darev,
singer-Penka Encheva,
producer-Mary Sherhart
This Baba is a universal story of grandmothers who are divided between here and there, isolated by a lack of English, stuck in suburbs, and missing their friends and loved ones back home. Penka Encheva is one of these grandmothers. An extraordinary traditional singer as a young woman in her native Bulgaria, she immigrates to America at age 67 to care for her grandchildren. Having given up on her dreams to be a published singer long ago, This Baba gets a second chance. www.thisbabamovie.com
November 18, 2:30pm
Sieranevada (drama)
Director Cristi Puiu (2h53 min, 2016)
Considered by most to be the godfather of New Wave Romanian Cinema, director Cristi Puiu directs the follow up film to his critically acclaimed 2005 drama, The Death of Mr. L?z?rescu. Sieranevada takes place three days after the terrorist attack on the offices of the Parisian weekly Charlie Hebdo and forty days after the death of his Lary's father. Lary, spends the Saturdayat a family gathering commemorating the deceased, but the occasion does not go according to his expectations. Lary, a middle-aged doctor, is forced to confront his fears and past, to rethink the place he holds within the family, and constraint to tell his version of the truth.
November 18, 6:00pm
Breaking News (drama)
Director Iulia Rugin?, (1h 21 min, 2017)
Guests in attendance: director-Iulia Rugin?, actor-Ioana Flora
Reporter Alex Mazilu is working on an in memoriam piece for a colleague, whose tragic death he indirectly caused. In a small town on the Black Sea, just three days before Christmas, Alex fits together the puzzle pieces of this man's life, with help from his troubled 15 year old daughter. Trying to redeem the dead father, he slowly starts taking his place. Winner of the Special Jury Mention for the Best Newcomer at Karlovy Vary IFF 2017.
November 19, 11:00 am
Scarred Hearts (drama)
Director Radu Jude (2h21 min, 2016)
Radu Jude's acclaimed fourth feature film is set during the summer of 1937 in a sanatorium on the Black Sea coast. Emanuel, a young man in his early twenties, is committed to the sanatorium for painful bone tuberculosis treatments. Emanuel, confined to a bed, adjusts to the limitations of his new life and discovers that life can still be lived to the fullest. He makes friends and engages in political conversations; he reads, writes, smokes, drinks and interacts with his caregivers. Over time Emanuel observes healing's transient nature and mysterious laws. This uplifting film depicts both the absurdist humor of the protagonist's situation and the zest with which he and his compatriots embrace life despite their limitations.
November 19, 1:45 pm
Two Lottery Tickets (comedy)
Director Paul Negoescu (1h26 min, 2016)
Guests in attendance: director-Paul Negoescu
Three men from a provincial town are in urgent need of money and decide to buy a lottery ticket. They win the lottery, but soon after their ticket gets stolen. The three desperate men go on a journey to find their lost lottery ticket and experience all kinds of adventures. The screenplay is based on a short story by Romanian author I.L. Caragiale.
November 19, 1:45 pm
The New Gypsy Kings (documentary)
Director, Liviu Tipurita (59 min, 2016)
Dive straight to the heart of the astonishing world of Romania's super-rich Gypsy popstars: a world of fast cars, lavish houses and gangsters. The Roma community is one of Europe's most marginalized and impoverished; for years their traditional music has been their most famous export. Now a new type of Gypsy sound called Manele has swept across the country. Manele stars can earn 20,000 euros a night at opulent weddings, with cash showered over them by guests. Their videos can get millions of hits on YouTube. But Manele is controversial - some of its lyrics glorify gangsterism and some of its biggest fans are notorious underworld figures. Traditional musicians, like the world-famous Taraf de Haïdouks, once championed by Johnny Depp, claim that Manele has put them out of business and that the new genre is destroying the Gypsy music brand. This film explores an extraordinary social and cultural change through its infectious soundtrack.
November 19, 5:30 pm
Back Home (comedy)
Director Andrei Cohn (1h31 min, 2015)
Guests in attendance: actor -Ioana Flora
Robert (Alexandru Papadopol), a published poet and journalist from Bucharest, returns home to his native village, three years after his mother's death. Over the next 24 hours, he makes an outstanding effort to renegotiate his troubled relationship with his father and reconnects with his old friend Petric? (Andi Vasluianu) and his one-time teenage sweet-heart Paula (Ioana Flora). The three friends share an evening meal which culminates in surprising love-life revelations and long-buried grudges.
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