GEOFFREY RUSH - Special guest at TIFF.22
Tickets are now on sale for Shine, the special screening which actor Geoffrey Rush will attend -> tiff.eventbook.ro
Australian actor Geoffrey Rush to receive the highest accolade awarded at the 22nd edition of Transilvania International Film Festival. With roles in some of the most awarded films of the last decades, Rush has been seen in popular film franchises including Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Rush will be celebrated in Cluj-Napoca, on June 17, 2023, where the actor is set to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Transilvania International Film Festival.
Known for his roles across Theater, Film and Television, Geoffrey Rush is one of Australia’s most acclaimed actors, having won the Academy Award for his role as the genius pianist in Shine. The actor will attend a special screening of Shine at Transilvania IFF.
Geoffrey Rush has been nominated for three other Academy Awards, in Shakespeare in Love, Quills, and The King’s Speech.
Rush won an Emmy Award for his starring role in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. Another notable television role for Rush was in the role of Albert Einstein in the television series Genius (2017), for which he received Emmy, SAG, and Golden Globe nominations.
Rush won the Tony Award in 2009, in the role of Monarch Berenger I, in Romanian-born playwright Eugen Ionescu’s absurdist play Exit The King, which earned Rush the Triple Crown of Acting (Oscar-Emmy-Tony.) Rush is one of 24 people to have ever done so, along with the likes of Al Pacino, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, Rita Moreno, and Viola Davis. Additional accolades include two Golden Globes, three BAFTA Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards, among many others.
Rush is also part of the beloved Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, in the role of Captain Hector Barbossa; the Australian actor appears in all five films in the series.
Geoffrey Rush will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Transilvania IFF Closing Gala on June 17.
Rush is repped by CAA, Shanahan Management, and Rosenfield Media Group.
Photo credit: Andrew Macpherson
OLIVER STONE @ Nuclear Now and Natural Born Killers
Tickets are nov on sale for Nuclear Now and Natural Born Killers, the special screenings which Oliver Stone will attend.
Controversial and polarising, Oliver Stone is one of the most prominent Hollywood figures of the 1980s and 1990s. He has won three Oscars, two as director for Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989), and one for the adapted screenplay of Midnight Express (1979).
"Oliver Stone has charted American history in a uniquely provocative and entertaining way" (David Parkinson, British Film Institute).
Often criticised for his choice of subjects, especially after the 2000s, when he made documentaries about the likes of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and JFK, Stone says he does not consider himself a political filmmaker:
" I consider my films first and foremost to be dramas about individuals in personal struggles and I consider myself to be a dramatist before I am a political filmmaker. I'm interested in alternative points of view. I think ultimately the problems of the planet are universal and that nationalism is a very destructive force. I also like anarchy in films."
His films are known for their powerful, often shocking imagery. Stone has never shied away from asking uncomfortable questions:
„My heroes were Luis Buñuel and Jean-Luc Godard. Breathless (1960) was one of the first pictures I really remember being marked by, because of the speed and energy. They say I'm unsubtle. But we need above all, a theatre that wakes us up: nerves and heart.”
Three productions that exemplify the great themes that have marked the filmmaker's career will be screened at Transilvania IFF: his most recent documentary, Nuclear Now (2022), "a must-see" (Variety) that premiered in Venice is an unprecedented investigation into the use of nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels. The screening of the documentary will be followed by a debate about nuclear energy in which Oliver Stone will participate alongside Romanian experts in the field. The program will include screenings of the visceral Natural Born Killers (1994), the story of two media-glorified killers based on a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino, and Born on the Fourth of July (1989), starring Tom Cruise as an American soldier in Vietnam, deeply scarred by the experience of war.
TIMOTHY SPALL @ Opening Gala | TIFF.22
British actor Timothy Spall is one of the special guests of the 22nd edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival (June 9 – 18, 2023, Cluj-Napoca). The actor will be honoured for Lifetime Achievement at the Opening Gala of the festival, on June 9. Tickets: tiff.eventbook.ro
Timothy Spall has created over 150 roles in film and television and has worked extensively with director Mike Leigh. His performances in Secrets & Lies (1996) and Topsy-Turvy (1999) earned him two BAFTA nominations. For his most recent collaboration with Leigh, Mr. Turner (2014), Spall received the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival. In the 90s, he also collaborated with directors such as Clint Eastwood (White Hunter Black Heart), Kenneth Branagh (Hamlet, Love's Labour's Lost) and Bernardo Bertolucci (The Sheltering Sky).
For younger generations of moviegoers, he became known worldwide as the wizard Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter franchise. Spall also starred alongside Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai (dir. Edward Zwick, 2003) and Jim Carrey in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (dir. Brad Silberling, 2004) and played Winston Churchill in the Oscar-winning The King's Speech (dir. Tom Hooper, 2010. At the end of the last millennium, Queen Elizabeth II made him an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Northern Comfort (Iceland / UK / Germany, 2023) is the latest film starring Timothy Spall. The comedy directed by Icelandic Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson will open Transilvania IFF.22 on June 9 in the presence of the British actor, who will be awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in Piața Unirii in Cluj-Napoca. Joining Timothy Spall will be director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson and English theatre and film actress Lydia Leonard (The Crown, Ten Percent).
Photo credit: Dean Chalkley
MICHEL FRANCO - Official Competition jury member | TIFF.22
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Awarded at Cannes for After Lucia (2012), Chronic (2015) and April's Daughter (2017), and winner of the Silver Lion in Venice for the terrifying New Order (2020), Mexican Michel Franco will also be present at Transilvania IFF.22, where he will be part of the Official Competition Jury. Director, screenwriter, and producer, he has quickly established himself as one of the most original voices of contemporary Latin America:
"I no longer try to impose an aesthetic on a film. At the beginning of my career, I had more rules, but now I'm very relaxed. I had more cinematic references, and now I have none. I borrow more from books than films. In a way, the aesthetic of my films is very close to my way of being."
Since his 2009 debut Daniel & Ana, Franco has brought complex, often shocking stories to the screen: "I like to look at the dark side of human nature, and to do that I have to challenge my characters. I don't believe that when we are put to the test the best will come out of us." Part of the festival programme, viewers will have the opportunity to see the Mexican filmmaker's latest film, Sundown (2021), in which Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsbourg play a couple faced with a life-threatening situation during their holiday in Mexico.
Michel Franco will host a masterclass for film students in Cluj-Napoca.
Photo credit: Ricardo Trabulsi