About the Festival

Transilvania IFF has taken on the mission of discovering new voices in cinema and hosts two international competitions - feature fiction and feature documentary - dedicated to first and second-time directors, as well as an annual showcase of contemporary Romanian cinema, within the Romanian Days.

Transilvania IFF also screens the most anticipated and award-winning films of the season, provocative and controversial productions, and includes a strong section dedicated to children and film education - EducaTIFF - or retrospectives of the world's leading filmmakers.

The Transilvania Trophy - €10.000

The Best Director Award - €3,500

The Special Jury Prize - €1,500

The Prize for Best Performance

The What's Up Doc Section Prize - €2,000

The Romanian Days Award for Feature Film

The Romanian Days Award for Debut

The Romanian Days Award for Short Film

RO Days, the event dedicated to film industry professionals attending the festival aims to create a space for continuous collaboration between filmmakers (producers, directors, distributors, sales agents), including several initiatives aimed at local and regional professionals and projects.

RO Days programmes include:

Transilvania Pitch Stop - international co-production platform;

Transilvania Talent Lab - dedicated to young filmmakers;

Full Moon Script Contest - competition for horror, fantasy, thriller and dark comedy scripts for pilot episodes for series/miniseries;

Drama Room - dedicated to directors, writers and producers in the region interested in making series or miniseries;

Closed Screenings - regional distributors, festival programmers, sales agents, press and other industry experts are shown a selection of 3 new Romanian feature films not yet released to the public;

Transilvania International Film Festival had the honour of welcoming on the red carpet some of the most important personalities of world cinema such as Nicolas Roeg, Wim Wenders, Sophia Loren, Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve, Vanessa Redgrave, Claudia Cardinale, Nicolas Cage, Geraldine Chaplin, Fanny Ardant, Melissa Leo, Julie Delpy, Jacqueline Bisset, Todd Solondz, Istvan Szabó, Jiří Menzel, Claude Lelouch, Michael Radford.

"It has been an extraordinary week for me. The people at the festival were generous in every way. I am very grateful for the screening of the film "Shine"; I haven't experienced such a reception in a very long time. My connection with Romania began when I decided to translate The King is Dying, a play by the playwright Eugène Ionesco, in which I performed and which brought me many awards. And now, the fact that I am here, in Ionesco's homeland, is a crowning achievement of this relationship. The audience and all the Romanians I have met, starting from the plane that brought me to Cluj, have been warm and welcoming. Two girls even thought I was the King of England. Who am I to contradict them?" said Geoffrey Rush on stage, at the TIFF 2023 Awards Gala.

Sophia Loren, Lifetime Achievement Award 2016 recipient: “As an actress, it's easy to get excited, but this time I'm overly excited.”

Richard Peña, professor at Columbia University and former director of the New York Film Festival: “I am for the first time at TIFF. It's lovely and very friendly, the audience is very enthusiastic, and the cinemas are packed. One can sense the support of the Cluj people for the festival and for the Romanian cinema.”

Iain Smith, Mad Max producer, Lifetime Achievement Award 2016 recipient: “It's a great honour to receive this recognition at TIFF. I feel privileged and Romania holds a special place in my heart because here I shot Cold Mountain, a great movie that changed the course of things for Romania. I made foreigners understand that they can make movies here.”

Bill Guentzler, artistic director of the Cleveland IFF and jury member in 2016: “It was amazing. Most festivals cannot do something like that.”

Bardi Johansson, musician: “I had amazing time in my new favourite city, Cluj. All the people were so nice, the festival gets 10/10!.”

Michael Kutza, director and founder of Chicago IFF: “I’m in charge of a very large festival in Chicago, but I’m still impressed with the TIFF selection. I’m very impressed with everything I see, the type of films, and the various genres. I’m jealous. But I have better weather than you guys. I’ve seen wonderful films, I’ve discovered a city of film aficionados, and this is awesome. I’m thinking of coming back to shoot a film – this city begs to be shot on film”.

Nik Powell, producer: “I think that TIFF, Mihai Chirilov and Tudor Giurgiu, together with their whole team, have one of the best film selections in the whole world. Here, I was introduced to the largest number of films offering an interesting perspective on life”.

Dennis Lim, director of programming Film Society of Lincoln Center: “Romanian cinema has been very important for the past 10 years or so, thus I think such a festival is absolutely necessary. It's very important to have a national competition and an actual promotion of the Romanian film industry. Transilvania IFF is a wonderful festival”.

Jay Weissberg, film critic Variety: “Balancing the intellectual with the emotional is the ultimate form of cinephilia, something so well reflected in TIFF’s programming, weaving together drama, comedy, horror, documentary…. It’s what feeds our hunger for film, and hopefully keeps our minds open to new experiences and discoveries.”

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Transilvania International Film Festival is organised by the Association for the Promotion of Romanian Film and the Association for the Transilvania Film Festival and is supported by the MEDIA Programme - Creative Europe. In 2011, TIFF was accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF).