The Teen Spirit Jury at TIFF.24

Fifteen young people from Cluj, aged between 16 and 20, make up the jury of Teen Spirit, the new competitive section of the Transilvania International Film Festival (June 13–22, 2025, Cluj-Napoca), which brings to the big screen films that explore youth culture.

The section will open during the Opening Gala with the screening of Christy (dir. Brendan Canty, 2025), a hopeful coming-of-age story about resilience and fresh starts, awarded in Berlin.

The 15 jury members who will present the Youth Award are: Nora László-Herbert, Noémi Kitti Danci-Sallak, Matei Lostun, Vlad Beu, Irina Chiriac, Victor Hanganu, Mara Salan, Ștefan-Constantin Comșa, Carina Domuța, Horia Petrean, Anna Marta, Alicia Coman, Vasile Rohnean, Alexandru Popa and Almira Moldovan.

In addition to Christy, the Teen Spirit selection also includes a true "Lithuanian Forrest Gump": the comedy Southern Chronicles (dir. Ignas Miskinis, Lithuania, 2024), which captures teenage love in a former Soviet country undergoing a turbulent transition to capitalism; World Between Us (dir. Marie Dvořáková, Czech Republic / Slovakia, 2024), centering on a novice photographer from the Czech Republic who makes it big in New York; and Where the Wind Blows (dir. Amel Guellaty, Tunisia, 2025), a tender and passionate road movie that also serves as an ode to Tunisian youth and their artistic aspirations.

The dynamics within a group of teenage girls and their sexual urges are put to the test over the course of a weekend spent at a Catholic monastery in Little Trouble Girls (dir. Urška Djukić, Slovenia, 2025), which premiered earlier this year at the Berlinale. Meanwhile, the Spanish film The Girls At The Station (dir. Juana Macías, Spain, 2024), inspired by a true story, follows the adventures of a group of young women raised in a juvenile care center.

A secret threatens to destroy a strong friendship in Block Pass (dir. Antoine Chevrollier, France, 2024), a debut selected at Cannes, while the almost symbiotic bond between two brothers is shaken when one of them falls in love in Kevlar Soul(dir. Maria Eriksson Hecht, Sweden, 2025).
Last but not least, Our Wildest Days (dir. Vasilis Kekatos, Greece, 2025) tells the adventurous story of a young woman who runs away from home and travels across Greece with a gang of romantics, helping the poor in unconventional ways.

Out of competition, the Teen Spirit section will also feature all five episodes of the TV series Social Studies (dir. Lauren Greenfield, USA, 2024), a groundbreaking experiment filmed in Los Angeles over the course of a school year, in which the director was granted unlimited access to the protagonists’ phones and to lives profoundly shaped by social media.

Teen Spirit continues TIFF’s tradition of youth-focused initiatives, alongside projects such as MiniTIFF – set to return this fall – and Ora de Cinema, an online educational program that promotes the use of film as a teaching tool in middle and high schools.

The Teen Spirit competition at TIFF.24 is supported by McDonald’s, Gerovital, and MSD.