Transilvania IFF 2013 in figures

The (almost) 400 screenings gathered over 62.000 paying viewers. The grand total of viewers – counting those present at the additional TIFF events (workshops, presentations, concerts and free screenings) and those who visited, on a daily basis, the main open air locations of the festival (Casa TIFF, Unirii Square, the Art Museum, Banffy Castle in Bonțida, Open Air Mănăștur) – surpasses 120.000, for the whole 10 festival days. In addition to the local audiences, TIFF attracted an impressive number of visitors from cities such as Bucharest, Bistrița, Dej, Turda, Oradea, Sibiu, Arad, Târgu Mureș or Sfîntu Gheorghe.

The selection put forward by the artistic director of the festival, Mihai Chirilov, encompassed 190 films – of which 155 features - from 53 countries. As by tradition, TIFF brought to Cluj some of the most important names in the film industry and media, adding up to a grand total of 1233 international and Romanian guests and journalists.

The online platform www.tiff.ro, constantly updated with fresh info and photo and video galleries, was accessed by 43.251 unique visitors, among which 41% are new visitors. Out of the grand total of 85.980 visits, about 10% were made from mobile phones; the most accessed pages were Program and Films. Even though the website was accessed mainly from Romania, there have been lots of online visitors from Great Britain, Germany, the United States, Hungary, France, Italy, the Netherlands or Austria. The official Facebook page of TIFF received 5000 new "Likes", which were added to a now grand total of 33.600. The number of likes for various posts went over 16.500, while certain posts gathered over 320 comments.

The 405 volunteers took care that this year's edition was better organized and more agreeable for audiences and guests alike. As the organizers tried to involve more experienced people beside students and high schoolers, the oldest TIFF volunteer was 69.

„Screen International”, one of the most important trade papers in film industry, wrote recently about the awards and the influence that TIFF has regarding the development of the city. The Cluj-Napoca city authorities are the first Romanian local authority to financially support the digitization of a cinema – Cinema Victoria (one of the traditional TIFF locations). „Furthermore, the city - which is the second largest in Romania after Bucharest - is set to become a new centre for audiovisual production in the future with the establishment of Regional Centre for Creative Industries with backing from EU regional development funding" continues the article.

The reception of the staff, the packed cinemas and the general atmosphere made a deep and lasting impression on TIFF's special guests. „I've been here for only three days, but they were three very happy days. I discovered that Romania is not so far away from the Czech Republic as it shows on the maps. I travelled to many countries, but here I felt happy. I was touched by the great number of people who came to see my film, an old film. At TIFF, I felt spoiled", said Jiří Menzel, the recipient of the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award.

„It's the first time that I'm here. It's hard to get here right after Cannes, but I'm happy I managed to do it because the vibe here is great and the audience is impressively young. At the same time, everybody is happy that the filmmakers have wonderful Q&As which are much longer than anywhere else in the world. This is a very democratic festival. You can see famous filmmakers having a beer with the spectators”, said Frédéric Boyer, the director of Tribeca Film Festival and one of the members of the TIFF Competition Jury. 

„I am amazed to see that, at 3 PM on Monday, there are so many people in the cinema. This is actually why this festival exists”, said director György Pálfi (Taxidermia), one of the members of the TIFF Competition Jury.

„I was invited in many juries at many important festivals such as Cannes, Venice or Berlin, but films there were not as good as those here. This is a very strong competition and the films are better than in the big festivals.” – Lynda Myles, British producer, former director of Edinburgh International Film Festival and one of the members of the TIFF Competition Jury.

Jay Weissberg, „Variety” film critic, told Digi24 that „This is one of the most important festivals in the circuit. I go to one or two festival each month. I always said that TIFF is the place where the sunrise finds me, at least 2 or 3 times, having a coffee with my friends. It's a lovely feeling and this is what cinema is supposed to be – this is what a film festival is supposed to be”.

TIFF Sibiu will take place between June 19 and 23. TIFF Miercurea Ciuc will take place between June 26 and 30.