Festivals 2: Astra Film Festival

I was there last year, in Sibiu, where the Astra Film Festival this year can celebrate its 20th edition from October 14-20.

The international competitive section of 9 films includes ”Leviathan” by Castaing-Taylor and Paravel, Marc Schmidt’s ”Matthews Laws”, Philibert’s ”La Maison de la Radio” and Wang Bing’s ”Three Sisters”, whereas a Central & Eastern European competition have Nikolaus Geyrhalter on the list with ”Danube Hospital” as well as Lina Luzyte’s ”Igrushki” (photo), a film that festivals have paid far too little attention to.

If you want to become acquainted with new Romanian documentaries, Sibiu is the place to go – there is a competitive as well as a non-competitive section. A press release proudluy states: Astra Film Festival continues with the tradition from the past editions and brings to the forefront Romanian personalities captured in extraordinary stories, which are told in cinematographic language. The most awaited Romanian productions of the moment are screened in world premiere at the anniversary 20th edition of Astra Film Festival, one of the most important documentary film festivals in Europe, which, over the past two decades, has promoted Romanian non-fictional film in the international context.

The program of the Romanian films from the 2013 AFF selection introduces an exciting cinematographic 7 day time travel through the non-fictional Romania, with its unusual stories and peculiar characters, transposed on the large screen through observational or television documentaries, essays, docudrama or auteur films.

http://www.astrafilm.ro/news.aspx

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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