Astra Film Festival in Sibiu Romania
… has existed since 1993 and offers a quality program, of course with a focus on what happens in current Romanian documentary but also with an international scope – the festival takes place October 16 to 22 in nice Sibiu. I was there some years ago and enjoyed the stay and the festival.
Let me quote from the site and urge you to get the whole picture through the link below:
”Voices of Doc is a theme section dedicated to authors whose names have become a synonym of authenticity and creativity in cinema. This section bring the latest works signed by three
authors: Wang Bing (China), believed to be the most prominent director of his time, Nikolaus Geyrhalter (Austria), an artist of cinema, famous for his fascinating images and his own rhythm, and Amos Gitai (Israel), a committed director, often vexatious and always controversial because of his uncompromising stance towards the eternal conflict in the Middle East. The films in this section are: Mrs. Fang (by Wang Bing), which has just won the Golden Leopard at Locarno, a disturbing and straightdforward film about the cultural transformation in present-day China, that transposes a millenary civilization into the model of a consumerist society; Homo Sapiens (Nikolaus Geyrhalter), the extraordinary and terrifying view of a post-human world, as disturbing as a SF thriller; and West of the Jordan River (Amos Gitai), the director’s journey into Palestinian territories taken over by Israel in an attempt to find solutions in the energy of the people he meets which politicians are unable to find.”
”Authenticity and creativity in cinema”… The festival has competitive sections and – as above – works with themes like ”post-truth”, ”the look of delusion”, ”a quest(ion) of identity”… and also at this festival days are dedicated to an industry programme that presents ”Romanian Docs in Progress” and ”financing and networking opportunities” with talks by Hanka Kastelicová on HBO Europe, Maja Lindquist on ”Doc Lounge” and being festival programmer for the Nordisk Panorama, and Vincent Lucassen who will ”introduce the work of UMW, an aggregator that offers a one-stop-shop solution to film makers and producers to exploit their films on global platforms like iTunes, Google, Amazon and Microsoft”.
And there is Bill Nichols, American film critic, talking about Herzog’s ”Grizzly Bear”. From the International competitive program let me mention ”Burma Storybook” (PHOTO) by Petr Lom and Corinne van Egeraat. From the section from central and Eastern Europe Polish ”Communion” by Anna Zamecka, ”Convictions” by Russian Tatiana Chistova and ”The Beast is Still Alive” by Mina Mileva and Vezela Kazakova – all written about on this site – not to forget Alexandru Solomon’s ”Tarzan’s Testicles”, a film that I will watch very very soon.
