Complete Retrospective of Corneliu Porumboiu’s work at Transilvania IFF.25
The Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF, June 12–21, 2026) celebrates one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary European cinema: Corneliu Porumboiu. Twenty years after his feature debut, TIFF.25 presents a complete retrospective of his work—from 12:08 East of Bucharest to La Gomera. A two-time winner of the Transilvania Trophy, Porumboiu will receive the TIFF.25 Special Award and give a masterclass.
A defining figure of the Romanian New Wave, Porumboiu has built a singular cinema—precise, ironic, and quietly radical—where language becomes action and meaning is constantly up for debate. As Variety put it, he is “an ingenious and witty filmmaker with a taste for conceptual games,” and one of the most distinctive auteurs working in Europe today.
His relationship with TIFF runs deep. 12:08 East of Bucharest opened the festival in 2006 and won the Transilvania Trophy. In 2009, Police, Adjective brought him a second trophy. He has returned to TIFF many times since—as jury member, collaborator, and a constant presence in Romanian Days, where his films have been repeatedly awarded. In 2008, Porumboiu was part of the festival jury and directed one of the seven James Bond spots for that edition. In 2009, he won his second Transilvania Trophy for Police, Adjective and in 2011, dressed in football gear, the director appeared on the poster of the 10th edition of TIFF, whose spot was in turn inspired by 12:08 East of Bucharest.
“I’m interested in how language shapes reality. In my films, words are not just tools of communication—they are part of the action itself.” (Corneliu Porumboiu)
The TIFF.25 retrospective spans all his features. His debut, 12:08 East of Bucharest, presented at Cannes, won the Caméra d’Or for Best First Feature, instantly becoming one of the defining titles of the New Romanian Cinema. In a small provincial town, a local TV show humorously and ambiguously revives the question of whether a revolution really took place there in December 1989. The following year, the film also won the award for Best Film at the Gopo Awards.
With Police, Adjective (2009), selected in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, Porumboiu received the Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize on the Boulevard de la Croisette, confirming his status as a major contemporary European cinema author. In the film, a policeman follows a teenager suspected of drug trafficking, but the investigation gradually triggers a crisis of conscience about law, language, and morality. The TIFF Trophy was followed the next year by no fewer than five Gopo Awards.
In When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism (2013), selected for the Official Competition at the Locarno Festival, the director continues his radical explorations of cinematic language and the relationship between reality and representation, turning the story of a director and an actress navigating an ambiguous relationship during the shooting of a feature film into a subtle essay on cinema, body and truth.
The Second Game (2014), presented in the Forum section at the Berlinale and awarded the Romanian Days prize at TIFF, is a unique cinematic experiment built around an archival football match commented by the director himself and his father, becoming a reflection on memory and recent history. Porumboiu returns to his passion for sport in the documentary Infinite Football (2018), which offers a playful meditation on rules, freedom, and the obsession with perfection.
Selected in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, The Treasure (2015) won the Un Certain Talent Prize, praised for its ironic minimalism and precision of social observation. Two men set out in search of a treasure buried in a rural yard, in a story about hope, obsession, illusions, and invisible inheritances. At TIFF, where it was screened immediately afterward, the director once again received the award for Best Romanian Film.
His most recent feature, La Gomera (2019), was presented in the Official Competition at Cannes, marking a new stylistic direction in Porumboiu’s cinema through a sophisticated and no less playful reinterpretation of film noir. It won nine Gopo Awards, including Best Film, and was Romania’s submission for the Oscars.
In addition to the seven feature films that the filmmaker wrote, directed, and produced, Transilvania IFF.25 will also screen two short films and one medium-length film made during and immediately after his studies at UNATC in Bucharest: Pe aripile vinului (2002), Călătorie la oraș (2003) and Visul lui Liviu (2004). As a bonus, Corneliu Porumboiu will introduce one of his favorite international films in the festival’s general program.
The Corneliu Porumboiu retrospective at TIFF.25 is an invitation to (re)discover an author who has redefined, film by film, not only Romanian cinema but also the ways in which language, truth, and reality can be questioned on screen. The full program and masterclass details will soon be announced on tiff.ro.
Full program and masterclass details coming soon on tiff.ro. Festival passes are now available online – https://tiff.ro/abonamente
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The Transilvania International Film Festival is organized by the Association for the Promotion of Romanian Film and the Transilvania Film Festival Association.
