Premium
The 14th edition of the documentary film and human rights festival One World Romania - which is dedicated this year to the celebration of women and their fight for asserting themselves as equal members of society - opens on Friday evening at Cinema Elvire Popesco with Paris Calligrammes, the latest film by German filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger, the organizers announced in a release.
The screening is part of the Ulrike Ottinger Retrospective that also includes two of the New Wave director's early fiction films, five travel or social observation documentaries and a short.
Also on the first day of the festival, Petit Samedi by young Belgian director Paloma Sermon-Dai will be presented at the Peasant Museum Cinema from 20:00 hrs.
The festival this year is a tribute to women, featuring films directed by women, about women. Four of the selected films will also be part of the competition, which brings together some of the most exciting documentaries made this year worldwide. They will be assessed by two juries: one of professionals from the international film industry, another made of highschool students from all over the country.
The celebration of the feminist struggles of yesterday and today will be an occasion to make known the militant activity of Lebanese-born French actress and film director Delphine Seyrig and of the Simone de Beauvoir Audiovisual Centre she created in 1982 together with Carole Roussopoulos and Ioana Wieder.
Apart from the main theme, OWR #14 includes the classic sections dedicated to justice, immigrants and refugees worldwide. The varied geographical origin and wide time range covered by the films in the section When Tanks Cry Instead of Us shows us not just that peace and democracy that reign in some parts of the world are never granted, but also that they must not act as an anesthetic for our empathy and interest in the less privileged.
The films included in the All Together section bet on proving that the edge and the center are notions that depend entirely on the viewer's position. The refugee crisis, prolonged and exacerbated by the new global context determined by the Covid pandemic is the subject of the No Place Like Home section.
As far as Romanian films are concerned, One World will take a look back at the little-known history of Romanian documentaries, through a series of screenings dedicated to some of the most important filmmakers of the genre - Paul Calinescu, Jean Mihail, Ada Pistiner, Florica Holban or writers Geo Bogza, Nina Cassian and Radu Cosasu - and will also take a glance to the future with the screening of films made by students of the National University of Theatre and Film (UNATC).
This year's edition also proposes two of the most recent Romanian productions, the recent recipient of the Berlin Golden Bear 'Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn' directed by Radu Jude, and an international premiere, 'The Certainty of Probabilities', Raluca Durbaca's debut in the documentary feature film.
One World Romania #14 runs between June 11 - 20 at the venues Cinema Elvire Popesco, the Peasant Museum Cinema, the Eforie Cinematheque, the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Bucharest, UNATC and J'Ai Bistrot on Calea Grivitei, and will be also available online all over the country between June 21 and 27.
