Hungarian Oscar Winner István Szabó Among TIFF 2021 Guests

A major figure of Hungarian cinema, director István Szabó comes to Romania as a special guest of the 20th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival. Over the ten days of the festival, he will be joined by tens of other foreign and Romanian guests, including writer Guillermo Arriaga, Director of the Film Department of the Cannes Film Festival Christian Jeune, Israeli producer Katriel Schory, directors Harry McQueen, Szabolcs Hajdu, Susanna Nicchiarelli, Agustí Villaronga and Uberto Pasolini.

István Szabó comes to Cluj with his most recent film Final Report. The author of the Oscar-winning Mefisto (1981), will be present for the screening in the Hungarian Day section on July 28 at Victoria Cinema, and at the Closing Gala he will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award which was announced at TIFF in 2018.  In his 60-year-long career, Szabó made tens of important titles, including Colonel Redl, Hanussen, Meeting Venus, Sunshine, Taking Sides, and Being Julia.

The Hungarian Day will also include other eight award-winning features, including Cluj-based director Cecília Felméri’s Spiral, which received a Special Mention in Warsaw and stars Alexandra Borbély (On Body and Soul) and Bogdan Dumitrache (Child’s Pose) — who himself will be present at TIFF with producer  András Muhi. And in the same section,  Szabolcs Hajdu returns to Cluj with Treasure City.

TIFF audiences will also get the chance to meet Harry McQueen, with his awarded Supernova, Christos Nikou, who will be present in the Official Competition with Apples and Vadim Perelman who will be there for the Persian Lessons screening in the Unirii Square. Italian director Susanna Nicchiarelli comes to TIFF with Miss Marx, her new Venice-awarded film. Also from Venice comes Nowhere Special, directed by Uberto Pasolini, producer of The Full Monty.

The Focus Spain section will bring to Cluj Roberto Cueto, programmer for San Sebastián, Agustí Villaronga, director of The Belly of the Sea, Manuel Arija de la Cuerda, director and producer of Ultrainnocence, Javier Polo Gandía, director of The Mistery of the Pink Flamingo, Guillermo Benet, director and writer for The Blameless.

The juries

Invited on the jury that will decide the winner of the Transilvania Trophy, the famous Mexican screenwriter and author Guillermo Arriaga, known for the 2006 Oscar-nominated Babel or for the best screenplay  winner at Cannes The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada will come to Cluj with the Director of the Film Department of the Cannes Film Festival Christian Jeune, Belfilms founder and producer and former Executive Director of Israel Film Fund Katriel Schory, American actor, director and producer Scott Coffey (Ellie Parker, Mullholland Drive), and Romanian actor Maria Popistașu, lead of this year’s Cannes Quinzaine des Réalisateurs selection Întregalde.

The jury for the Romanian Film Days section will include Bernd Buder, programme director of the FilmFestival Cottbus and selection consultant for the Berlinale section Forum, along with director and senior programmer Freddy Olsson, former chairman of Göteborg Film Festival, and New Europe Film Sales marketing manager Ewa Bojanowska. The short films in the Romanian Days section will be judged by Doris Bauer, co-director of Vienna Shorts, film critic Jay Weissberg, director of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, and Xavier Henry-Rashid - founder of Film Republic. Film teacher and film critic Jean-Max Méjean will be part of the FIPRESCI Jury, along with film critic Jenni Zylka, a member of the selection team for the Panorama section of the Berlinale, and Marina Kostova, one of the leading film journalists in the Republic of North Macedonia, deputy editor-in-chief of SDK.

Romanian guests

Important names of Romanian cinema will come to Cluj-Napoca for the festival: director Nae Caranfil will receive an Excellence Award, actor Cezara Dafinescu will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, director Daniel Sandu will come to Romanian Days with The Father Whom Moves Mountains, and actors  Alex Bogdan and Ilona Brezoianu, will come straight from the Cannes red carpet with Întregalde.

TIFF’s 20th anniversary party will also feature designer Doina Levintza, who will launch a photo album with costumes from Lucian Pintilie’s film Why Are the Bells Ringing, Mitică?,  Florin Piersic Jr., who plays in That Was Life (dir. David Martín de los Santos), Dan Bordeianu, who returns to the big screen in The Windseeker (dir. Mihai Sofronea), director Octavian Strunilă, who will make his debut in Cluj with Perfect Strangers, and Mircea Andreescu, one of the protagonists of No Rest for the Old Lady (dir. Andrei Gruzsniczki),