Boogie
(Romania, 2008, 102 min)

Director: Radu Muntean
Screenplay: Alexandru Baciu, Radu Muntean, Răzvan Rădulescu
Cinematography: Tudor Lucaciu
Cast: Dragos Bucur, Anamaria Marinca, Mimi Brănescu, Adrian Văncică, Vlad Muntean
Production: Multimedia Est & Antena 1
Festivals & Awards: Official Selection of the Directors Fortnight, Cannes 2008; Award For Best Screenwriter at the Hamptons IFF; Special Jury Award, Palic IFF; Best Director, Anonimul Film Festival 2008, Romania

Life for Bogdan couldn’t seem more blissful, vacationing by the sea with his gorgeous wife and adorable young son. His youthful days of glorious drinking trips and sexual adventures are long gone. But when he unexpectedly runs into his best friends from high school, vivid memories immediately flood back. Suddenly, he hears the wild call of bachelor life. Torn between his family obligations and the lure of a fun night out with his old friends, Bogdan – or Boogie, as he was known back then – comes to a realization. The gaps between his childhood pals have grown wider. Friendship, it seems, can no longer be based on common tastes in women, beer, or football teams.

Boogie was a revelation to me in Cannes, and I was honored to present its North American premiere in the Hamptons this year. Its dissection of relationships, amongst both friends and lovers, was crafted with such nuance and insight. I'm so thrilled that it won our screenwriting award this year. Insight and attention to emotional detail as seen in Boogie is rare in film these days." – David Nugent, Director of Programming, Hamptons International Film Festival

Saturday, Dec 6, 8:15 p.m.

Sunday, Dec 7, 6:00 p.m.

Both screenings followed by Q&A; with director Radu Gabrea and producer Victoria Cociaş
US Premiere

Gruber’s Journey
Călătoria lui Gruber
(Romania, 2008, 97 min)

Director: Radu Gabrea
Screenplay: Răzvan Rădulescu, Alexandru Baciu
Cinematography: Dinu Tanase
Cast: Florin Piersic Jr., Claudiu Bleont, Răzvan Vasilescu, Colin Buzoianu, Marcel Iures, Udo Schenk
Production: Orion Film Romania, Zenith Film, Uj Budapest Film Studio
Festivals: Transilvania IFF 2008; Eastern European Film Festival, Montreal 2008; Special Guest Radu Gabrea at KLEZFIESTA, Buenos Aires, 2008; upcoming: Atlanta International Jewish Film Festival 2009

Directed by the veteran Radu Gabrea, [and co-written by Răzvan Rădulescu (The Death of Mr Lazarescu)], this film is an absorbing tragi-comedy which focuses on the attempts of the Italian author Curzio Malaparte to search for Josef Gruber, a Jewish doctor, whom he hopes will help cure his severe allergy. The red tape that he has to wade through to find the doctor makes Dickens' Circumlocution Office seem straightforward,” writes Ronald Bergan in The Guardian. A friend of Mussolini’s and a war correspondent attached to the Wehrmacht troops, Malaparte arrives in the Romanian town of Iasi in June 1941, soon after the Romanian Army, under the orders of Marshall Ion Antonescu, entered the “sacred war” as an ally to Hitler’s Germany against the Soviet Russia. His search for Gruber leads him to discover terrifying truths, which have been long hidden and twisted by the official History of Romania.

Sunday, Dec 7, 3:30 p.m.

US Premiere

Elevator
(Romania, 2007, 85 min)

Directing and Cinematography: George Dorobantu
Screenplay: Gabriel Pintilei
Cast: Cristi Petrescu, Iulia Verdes
Production: Keep Movieng
Festivals & Awards: Best Romanian Debut, Transilvania IFF 2008; Fresh Generation Award, Fresh Film Fest, Prague 2008; Audience Feature Choice Award, Auburn IFF, Australia 2008

One of the most surprising films in the festival is a guerilla-style miniDV low-budget production (made for just $300) based on an award-winning stage play written by Gabriel Pintilei. Shot by an unknown director-cinematographer with two unknown actors, Elevator nevertheless enthralls audiences with a tense relationship between two teenagers trapped in the broken elevator of a deserted factory. There is no one around to hear them, and nobody knows their whereabouts. They have no food and no water and, as days go by, they lose hope of ever getting out alive. The premise is exciting and the film manages to keep you on high alert for a whole 85 minutes. “What this beautiful dying couple goes through in 85 minutes would take most people 30 years (and several divorces) to live through. Elevator evokes Gus Van Sant’s Gerry (despite using the opposite device of confined space rather then open desert), and even his Last Days in its glorious final sequence.” – Fabien Baumann, Positif 

US Premiere

The Village Called Sands
Nisipuri
(Romania, 2008, 77 min)

Written and Directed by Claudiu Mitcu
Cinematography: Andrei Butică
Production: Wearebasca
Festivals: Transilvania IFF 2008

“This utterly charming film looks at a scruffy little fair in an impoverished corner of southwestern Romania. The picture builds up with interviews with local children, inhabitants, and the sometimes jaundiced stall holders, as the area is prepared. Opinions vary as to how long the fair has been coming to town, but it's been here every 29th August for as long as anyone can remember. Basic, shoddy affair though it is, with its lucky wheel made of nails and its boxing booth with the most ancient and misshapen punchball you've ever seen, with dodgy meatballs (horse? donkey??) and tawdry prizes, it's the fair everyone remembers from their childhood, and it makes people happy… 'There is no fair without a merry-go-round', declares the merry-go-round man, and the most beautiful and joyous image of all is a slow take of the simple machine as it starts up and whirls its customers up and around against an afternoon sky. As the sun sets the punters turn homeward on their various vehicles ('I come on the tractor, but I've got an Opel at home'). A delight.” – Sheila Seacroft, Neil Young’s Film Lounge

Saturday, Dec 6, 4:30 p.m.

Cold Waves
Război pe calea undelor
(Romania/ Germany/ Luxembourg, 2007, 108 min)

Wrriten and Directed by Alexandru Solomon
Cinematography: Andrei Butică
Production: Hi Film Productions
Festivals & Awards: Gopo Award for Best Documentary, 2007; IDFA Amsterdam 2007; DOK Leipzig 2007; Astra Film Fest Sibiu 2007; Goeteborg Film Festival 2008; Visions du Reel, Nyon 2008; Los Angeles South East European FF 2008

Sat, Dec 6, 4:30 pm

“The post-modern narrative form seems almost tailor-made for Communist Romania, a murky land of suspicion and conspiracy theories: truth and lie, then and now, facts and assumptions, all merge to form a ghostly web. Solomon has used this to make a masterpiece of a film about the history of the Romanian section of Radio Free Europe.” – Chris Keulemans, IDFA. During the 80’s, Radio Free Europe was the secret relief and confidant of its Romanian listeners. The Radio was Ceauşescu’s most important enemy; he even hired Carlos the Jackal to close it down. A strange alliance was thus forged, between a national-communist dictator and international terrorism. The world has changed, and there are different wars now. But if you listen to the voices, you may get a better picture…

Saturday, Dec 6, 6:15 p.m.

Followed by: Don’t Get Me Wrong

Bar de zi and Other Stories
Bar de zi şi alte povestiri
(Romania, 2007, 57 min)

Director: Corina Radu
Cinematography: Dragan S. Nikolic
Production: Aristoteles Workshop
Festivals & Awards: Romania Section Award, Astra Film Festival 2008; Best Documentary, L’Alternativa Independent Film Festival Barcelona 2008; Cork Film Festival 2008; Istanbul International 1001 Documentary FF 2008; Camerimage, Lodz, Poland 2008

Set in the medieval part of Sibiu, this documentary of intertwined tales discreetly discovers the intimate stories of the simple customers of a ‘bar de zi’ (day bar)--the last State-owned bar to survive the communist regime. Started as an experiment of what would happen if we look more closely at the people we come across in our everyday life, the film reveals unexpected, strange, and sometimes tragic life stories. Ordinary people prove to be strong, true and profoundly human characters. The modest entrance into a day bar becomes, in fact, a doorway to an intense, passionate and delightful world; and a deep reflection on human nature and destiny.

Saturday, Dec 6, 6:15 p.m.

Preceded by: Bar de Zi and Other Stories

Don't Get Me Wrong
Nu te supăra, dar...
(Romania, 2007, 50 min)

Directed by: Adina Pintilie
Cinematography: Sorin Gociu
Production: Aristoteles Workshop
Festivals & Awards: Golden Dove, Dok Leipzig 2007; Official Selection Locarno IFF 2007; Selection in Best of Fests, IDFA Amsterdam 2007; Best Female Director, IFF of Contemporary Cinema, Mexico 2008; Sarajevo IFF 2008; Dokfest Munchen 2008; Moscow IFF 2008

A powerful document of the insular world of compulsive and repetitive behavior, Don’t Get Me Wrong takes the viewer to a Romanian psychiatric hospital, in an unadulterated take on the daily routine of its patients, which debate the weather, God, and other forces beyond their control. It is a self sufficient universe, with rules that escape the common logic, yet end up perfectly valid. A controversial film that raises the question of how far a filmmaker can go as a responsible documentarist, Adina Pintilie’s film is a poignant exploration of a community hemmed in by physical and psychic walls.

FESTIVAL CLOSING:
Sunday, Dec 7, 8:00 pm

Followed by Q&A; with filmmaker Răzvan Georgescu

US Premiere

Testimony
Testimonial
(Romania/ Germany, 2008, 90 min)

Written and Directed by Răzvan Georgescu
Cinematography: Stefan Grandinetti, Hans Zimmermann, Torsten Lapp, Enrico Wolf
Featuring: Jörg Immendorff, Bill Viola, Katherine Sherwood, Helmut Dubiel, Peter Jecza, Remus Georgescu, William Finn
Production: Starcrest Media, Pelegrin Film, ZDF, ARTE, TVR
Festivals & Awards: Prix Europa 2008 for Best European Documentary; Special Jury Prize and Audience Award at DOCUMFEST Timişoara 2008

Diagnosed with a brain tumor and given three years to live, filmmaker Răzvan Georgescu decides to overcome the solemnity of this prognosis to explore the realm between life and death by interviewing some of its prominent inhabitants:  famous artists who have had a traumatic brush with mortality and were given a limited amount of time to live. Can death and illness be a motor for creativity? Can creativity arm us against oblivion? “This documentary transforms in a surprising way a very hard and frightening private situation into a constructive and thoughtful journey about our life on this earth. The director succeeds in giving his own illness a philosophical approach to time, life and art and he reminds us of the simple message that we have to live when we are alive. This outstanding programme tells the never ending story about life and death and life again.” – The Jury of Prix Europa 

Saturday, Dec 6, 6:45 p.m.

Sunday, Dec 7, 8:30 p.m.


Introduction by Moshe Yassur. Screenings followed by Q&A; with director Radu Gabrea

Goldfaden’s Legacy: The Origins of Yiddish Theater
Moştenirea lui Goldfaden
(Romania, 2004, 58 min)

Direction: Radu Gabrea
Special Guest: Zalmen Mlotek. With the participation of: Eleanor Reissa, Itzitk Gottesman, Nahma Sandrow, Alyssa Pia Quint, Yale Strom, Harry Eliad, Iacov Bodo, Elisabeth Schwartz, Ioan Holban, Carol Markovitch, Golan Ofer, Sandler Gera.
Production: Total TV Bucharest

The Romanian Film Festival celebrates the Goldfaden Centennial 2008 with a documentary about Avram Goldfaden, founder of the Jewish Theatre and original playwright and pioneer of the Broadway musical (in whose honor the Goldies awards for excellence of the Hebrew Actors Union are named). This richly evocative film chronicles the 19th-century life of Abraham Goldfaden, who abandoned his rabbinical studies and went on to almost single-handedly create the modern Yiddish theater. Beginning with the first professional Yiddish theater performance—a two-act play in the city of Iaşi in Northern Romania—the documentary travels across Europe to Paris and London, and finally to New York. At his death in 1908 in New York, some 70,000 New Yorkers participated at the funeral procession, blocking all traffic in Manhattan in order to pay their last respect to the “Shakespeare of the Jewish people.” The film highlights the pre-war cultural relations between the local Romanian and Jewish population, as well as the influence of the New York Yiddish Theater on popular American culture, and the modern revivals of popular Yiddish theater productions.

Saturday, Dec 6, 8:30 p.m.

Europolis
Asta e
(Romania/ Germany, 2001, 92 min)

Written and Directed by Thomas Ciulei
Cinematography: Thomas Ciulei, Antonio Pintus
Production: Ciulei Films, Europolis Film, ZDF
Festivals & Awards: Panorama, Berlinale 2001; Documentary Grand Prize, Belfort 2001; Golden Olive, Kalamata Intl Documentary Festival 2001; Grand Jury Prize for Widescreen & Silver Rembrandt for Documentary, IBC Amsterdam 2001; Special Mention, Les ecrans documentaires, Paris 2002

The Romanian town of Sulina lies right in the no-man's-land of the Danube Delta, cut off from the rest of the world. It used to be a wealthy trade town, but with the decline of communism the economic connections petered out. The film portrays three different generations by following four of the region’s inhabitations, striving everyday to make ends meet. 25-year-old Nicu tries to make a living as a fisherman. Ionuţ, 15, sets out to steal whatever he can find on the deserted ships of the Danube-fleet to sell it afterwards. The old married couple Varvara and Toni live from hand to mouth as peasants. Regular arguments arise as Toni drinks too much, while Varvara is left to do all the work, and secretly carries out rituals in the hope of changing her husband.

Timişoara, December 1989
Timişoara, decembrie 1989
(Romania, 1991-1993, 81 min)

Written and Directed by Ovidiu Bose Paştină
Cinematography: Doru Segall
Production: Sahia Film Studio

Set in the title Romanian city during the tumultuous fall of Communist dictator Ceauşescu, this stark black-and-white documentary chronicles the attempts of government soldiers to quell a citizens’ revolt. But during the few days of the uprising, which preceded and stirred the Bucharest events of December 21-22, a surprising thing happens – the soldiers join the citizens. The filmmakers use interviews, video footage of the events and archival photographs to recreate the rebellion. Translucently beautiful, the film looks as if it were shot with an X-ray machine, a simile which is echoed in the grueling testimonies of people betrayed and exposed by their own revolution.

Andrei Serban Traveling Academy (ASTA) presents
Staged Reading of "The Day After-Tomorrow, the Day Before Yesterday" by Gianina Cărbunariu

A new wave of experimentation has been sweeping Romania not only in cinema, but also in the field of theatre, with many young playwrights prompting a new writing in which “reality takes the stage” (Gwen Orel, The New York Times). Among them: Gianina Cărbunariu, is one of the most celebrated young Romanian playwrights.

After its series of workshops and presentations in 2007 with Deadly Confession, ASTA presents this December an exceptional reading of Gianina Cărbunariu’s most recent play: The Day After-Tomorrow, the Day Before Yesterday.

Launched in 2007 as a pilot-project, the Traveling Academy (ASTA) is an artistic lab developed under the innovative guidance of prominent director and inspiring teacher Andrei Serban. For this presentation, Andrei Şerban will work with a group of students from Columbia University's acting department.

NOTE THE DIFFERENT VENUE:
Romanian Cultural Institute in NY
200 East 38th Street (at 3rd Avenue), New York , NY 10016
(SUBWAY: 4, 5, 6, 7, S to Grand Central - 42nd St.)
www.icrny.org 

FREE ADMISSION
RSVP at [email protected],
212-687-0180

Cărturesti Bookstore at RCINY and Tribeca Cinemas

Join us also for another experiment: a preview of what a Romanian bookstore in New York could look like, organized in collaboration with Carturesti Bookstore.

RCINY has been frequently asked, by Romanians and Americans alike, where to find new releases by Romanian authors, musicians and filmmakers, or books related to the Romanian presence in the world. Started in 2000 as a little bookshop in the center of Bucharest, Carturesti has rapidly grown from one of the most celebrated Romanian enterprises into a cultural brand all its own ─ thus being the natural partner for this endeavour.

Review and purchase a sample of books and DVDs of Romanian films old and new, and let us know what you’d like a future bookstore to be like, by joining the Carturesti Info Point at Tribeca Cinemas during the festival, and visiting its temporary setup in the Romanian Gallery on December 3 & 7. More details at www.icrny.org