12 feature films are competing for this year's Transilvania Trophy, the top prize of the Transilvania International Film Festival. Destined to first or second time feature film directors, TIFF's competition line-up brings together this year a mix of comedy, drama, experimental, social, political and films focusing on character studies. For the first time in the festival's 9-year history, the feature film competition consists entirely of European productions, with the sole exception of a Thai film.
“This year's selection, composed exclusively of fiction features, is, maybe, the most diversified one in our history: on a scale between two cinematic extremes such as the Spanish feature Fat People / Gordos, an excelently driven puzzle-film, funny, touching and audience-oriented and, on the other hand, Thai feature Mundane History, a disruptive, meditative and radically-experimental film, there are 10 other very different films, which, I hope, will captivate a public in search of emotion, diversity and originality” states Transilvania IFF's artistic director, Mihai Chirilov.
TIFF 2010 will see the return of Spanish director David Sanchez Arevalo, whose debut feature, Dark Blue Almost Black / Azuloscurocasinegro was one of the audience's favorites in the 2007 TIFF. His second feature film, emotional comedy Fat People / Gordos (2009), winner of the Goya Award for Best Supporting Actor (Raul Arevalo), brings him the second and final chance for the Transilvania Trophy. The Transilvania IFF competition also programmes other public-oriented features: Polish film Reverse / Rewers (d. Boris Lakosz, 2009), winner of the FIPRESCI Award at the Warsaw International Film Festival; Serbian black comedy Devil's Town / Djavolja Varos (d. Vladimir Paskaljevic, 2009), awarded in Palm Springs and Trieste and Swedish tragicomedy A Rational Solution / Det enda rationella (d. Jorgen Bergmark, 2009).
Romania will be represented this year by two features awarded in several festivals for the past year: Razvan Radulescu & Melissa de Raaf's drama First of All, Felicia / Felicia, inainte de toate, selected in the 2009 competition of the Sarajevo Film Festival and Calin Peter Netzer's family story Medal of Honor / Medalia de onoare, awarded with 5 trophies in the Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
TIFF's competition line-up also includes outstanding experimental and provocative films: the first Thai film selected in the TIFF Competition, Mundane History (d. Anocha Suwichakornpong, 2009), awarded in the Rotterdam 2010; Last Conversation (d. Noud Heeskens, The Netherlands, 2009), Johanna ter Steege's one-take tour-de-force performance shot with 24 cameras; Belgian anti-globalization feature Altiplano (d. Peter Brosens, Jessica Hope Woodworth), selected in the Critics' Week line-up in Cannes 2009 and Irish-Dutch co-production Nothing Personal (d. Urszula Antoniak), six-time awarded in last year's competition of the Locarno International Film Festival.
Remarkably driven character-study French feature Restless / Bel age (d. Laurent Perreau, 2009) and powerful Danish drama R (d. Tobias Lindholm and Michael Noer, 2010), included in the official selection of the Rotterdam International Film Festival, complete this year's competition line-up.
