Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema
Co-presented with the Romanian Film Initiative
Making Waves returns for its 10th edition featuring a cross section of narrative features, documentaries, and shorts. Titles fresh from Cannes and Berlin lead the slate of features: Corneliu Porumboiu’s fairy tale The Treasure; Romania’s unorthodox answer to 12 Years a Slave, Radu Jude’s Aferim!; Radu Muntean’s subtle morality play, One Floor Below; and Why Me?, the Sidney Lumet–esque political thriller by Tudor Giurgiu, based on tragic true events.
Another highlight will be a special tribute screening of Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), commemorating the 10th anniversary of Making Waves. A seminal title of the Romanian New Wave, this dark comedy was presented at the first edition back in 2006 and took American critics by storm, helping to establish Romania as a major player in the contemporary landscape of international art cinema.
The series will also feature panels, special guests, and a continuation of the Creative Freedom Through Cinema program, examining the relationship between art and politics in Eastern Europe and spotlighting work from Georgia and the Republic of Moldova.
The raw survival documentary Toto and His Sisters (Alexander Nanau), a selection of short films (including the newest from Puiu and Ramona, the noir revenge tale that won a prize in Cannes), and a tribute to one of the greatest Romanian filmmakers, Mircea Daneliuc—whose work inspired the Romanian New Wave—complete this exciting lineup.
Making Waves is co-presented with the Romanian Film Initiative, with the support of the Trust of Mutual Understanding, LARK Play Development Center, the Romanian National Center of Cinema, the Filmmakers Union of Romania, and many individual supporters.
Intimate Bed
Opening Night · Q&A with Mircea Daneliuc
Artistic indignation at its best, Daneliuc’s anarchic film is the most accurate portrayal of the messy transitions in Romanian society of the 1990s, as seen through the eyes of a movie theater manager who’s going crazy.Aferim!
Closing Night · Q&A with producer Ada Solomon
A policeman and his son search for a fugitive in this captivating road movie set in 19th-century Romania. A truly unique period film, Radu Jude’s third feature represents the country in this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race.Aliyah DaDa
Q&A with Oana Giurgiu
Unfolding like a fairy tale, this rich, visually captivating documentary about the reality of Jewish life in Romania in the 20th century is not without its dark revelations, including the infamous trade of Romanian Jews to Israel during Ceaușescu’s regime.Bucharest Nonstop
North American Premiere · Q&A with Dan Chisu
Four stories of ordinary yet colorful people caught in extraordinary situations are cleverly interwoven in this funny, bittersweet portrayal of urban life set during a single night in Romania’s chaotic capital city.One Floor Below
Radu Muntean’s simmering anti-thriller, about the internal conflict within a family man who may have witnessed the prelude to a neighbor’s murder, gracefully and economically contends with hard questions of morality and the political resonances of everyday life.
Toto and His Sisters
Ten-year-old Toto and his teenage sisters struggle to live on their own and stay pure amid a cruel environment. Shot over several years, with astonishing access to its subjects, this tough yet optimistic HBO-produced documentary is reminiscent of early Ken Loach.
Trading Germans
North American Premiere · Introduction by producer Ada Solomon
Meticulously researched and crafted, Trading Germans reveals the untold story of one of the largest and most scandalous human-trade mysteries in postwar Europe: how could 246,000 ethnic Germans from Romania have been secretly sold to Germany during the Cold War without anyone else noticing? A mind-blowing and highly emotional experience.Why Me?
Q&A with Tudor Giurgiu, producer, and actors
Based on tragic true events, this Sidney Lumet–esque political thriller about one man’s fight with the system finds Tudor Giurgiu in a more serious mode after his crowd-pleasing Of Snails and Men, taking risks in exposing the dirty and sometimes tragic games of Romanian politics.The World Is Mine
North American Premiere
In this meaner and lower-budget Mean Girls, 16-year-old Larisa struggles to stay afloat after falling for the wrong guy. The small-town world in which good looks and money give power over the less fortunate doesn’t favor the rebellious and stubborn teenager, who lashes out with devastating consequences.New Romanian Shorts
Celebrating 10 Years of Making Waves: A Festival Retrospective
California Dreamin’ (Endless)
Introduction by actor Andi Vasluianu
Today, revisiting Nemescu’s posthumous (and newly digitally remastered) feature debut, one thing’s for sure: the seduction and electrifying rock ’n’ roll vitality of this epic farce of carnivalesque proportions—far removed from the stripped-down realism of most of New Romanian Cinema’s big hits—remain unaltered.The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu
Ten years ago, this dark comedy about the lonely 63-year-old Mr. Lăzărescu who feels sick, calls an ambulance, and is then moved around from one hospital to the next, took American critics by storm. It’s time to revisit this seminal title of the Romanian New Wave.
Director in Focus: Mircea Daneliuc
Mircea Daneliuc is no stranger to New York audiences. Back in 1998, Richard Peña selected his masterful Jacob for the New York Film Festival. And in 2008, Peña curated the most expansive Romanian season ever presented at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, featuring yet another Daneliuc masterpiece, Microphone Test. This year’s opening film Intimate Bed was released in the U.S. in 1995, with Stephen Holden of The New York Times calling it “a harshly surreal comedy of life in post-Communist Romania that has a furious, flailing conviction.” Daneliuc’s impressive career encompasses 17 features (16 of which he wrote) and 11 acting roles, plus several plays, novels, and short stories. He is considered one of the most important Romanian artists—the creator of subversive films anchored in reality but showcasing mordant dark humor and unrelenting satire.
Intimate Bed
Opening Night · Q&A with Mircea Daneliuc
Artistic indignation at its best, Daneliuc’s anarchic film is the most accurate portrayal of the messy transitions in Romanian society of the 1990s, as seen through the eyes of a movie theater manager who’s going crazy.The Cruise
Introduction by Mircea Daneliuc
In Cristi Puiu’s favorite of Daneliuc’s works and the most Altman-esque film ever made in Romania, young winners of various contests from across the country are awarded with a cruise on the Danube. Originally meant as a reward, the trip ends up being a punishment…The Snails’ Senator
Q&A with Mircea Daneliuc and actor Cecilia Bârbora
In Mircea Daneliuc’s ferocious political satire, Senator Vîrtosu spends the weekend at a guesthouse formerly owned by the Communist Party—and because a leopard cannot change its spots, he still behaves like one of the Party.Creative Freedom Through Cinema
Making Waves’s Creative Freedom Through Cinema program continues to examine the relationship between art and politics in Eastern Europe, with a spotlight this year on films from Georgia and the Republic of Moldova. Georgia is experiencing something of a cinematic renaissance thanks to recent festival hits Blind Dates and In Bloom, whereas Moldova is a place rarely seen on screen—although it has given us Oleg Mutu, one of the most acclaimed cinematographers in the world, who has worked with such esteemed directors as Cristian Mungiu and Sergei Loznitsa. Both countries are represented in this year's program with films about survival in the harshest conditions: George Ovashvili's Corn Island, winner of the top prize in Karlovy Vary, and Igor Cobileanski's The Unsaved, which benefits from Mutu's impressive camerawork. Moldovan director Pavel Cuzuioc (whose documentary Digging for Life screened here in 2011) will present his brand new short Raisa featuring Cristina Flutur (Beyond the Hills). Special thanks to the Trust for Mutual Understanding.
The Unsaved
Moldovan director Igor Cobileanski’s feature debut captures the dead ends of a youth generation growing up in a place lacking prospects for a better life. This authentic, socially conscious film was based on a script first drafted by Corneliu Porumboiu and shot by master DP Oleg Mutu (The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu). Screening with Raisa (Pavel Cuzuioc, 15m).
Corn Island
An old peasant and his innocent granddaughter sow corn on an island situated in the middle of a conflict zone in this powerful life-and-death fable. Told through captivating imagery and practically without dialogue, this majestic drama won the top prize in Karlovy Vary and was Georgia’s Oscar entry for the Best Foreign Language Film.
Panel: Creative Freedom Through Cinema
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