The tenth edition of Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) is on its marks. During the ten days, between June 3 -12, Cluj-Napoca will welcome over 700 Romanian and foreign guests and 220 feature and short films. This year as well, TIFF promises a true cultural feast, which will not be short of special screenings, national, international and world premieres, or workshops and master-classes held by important guests from film industry, music and theatre shows, exhibitions, book, DVD and magazine launches.
Part of - starting with the 2011 edition - the elite club of festivals accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers’ Associations (FIAPF), endorsement which places it among the 40 most important festivals in the world, this year too TIFF will enjoy the presence of renowned guests. The great British actress Jacqueline Bisset will be awarded the Special Prize for Contribution to World Cinema, for a career that spans over 85 roles in film and TV productions, Golden Globes, Emmy and César Awards nominations. The festival audience will be able to see Bisset in flesh and blood, but also on the big screen, in a memorable role, during the special screening of La Cérémonie (France-Germany, 1995), film directed by Claude Chabrol, which brought her a nomination for the César Awards, scheduled on Saturday, June 11, at 6 p.m., at Cinema Florin Piersic.
Another great British actor, Michael York, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award Offered to an Outstanding Personality of the European Cinema. In his honour, on Thursday, June 9, from 9.30 p.m., at the Students' Cultural Center, TIFF will screen the most important title in York's career: Cabaret (d. Bob Fosse, 1971), a film presented by the Romanian Cinemateque.
Marin Karmitz, the legendary Romanian-born French producer, founder of the production, distribution and exhibition company MK2, returning to Romania for the first time since he left the country in the 40s, and cameraman and producer Oleg Mutu, responsible for the photography in The Death of Mr.Lazarescu, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Tales from the Golden Age and My Joy, will be the recipients of Special Awards of the 10th Transilvania IFF. In honour of Marin Karmitz, TIFF brings to Cluj Certified Copy (d. Abbas Kiarostami, France, 2010), screened on Friday, June 10, from 10.00 p.m., at Cinema Victoria, while Oleg Mutu will take part, on Sunday, June 5, starting 9.30 p.m., at the screening of Innocent Saturday (d. Alexander Mindadze, Russia-Germany-Ukraine, 2011), with photography signed by him.
The four of them - together will all the other winners of TIFF 2011 awards - will receive their trophies on the Closing Gala stage of the festival, scheduled Saturday, June 11, from 8.30, at the National Theatre and broadcasted live on www.tiff.ro, but also on the biggest media facade in Romania - Cocor Media Channel, located in downtown Bucharest. The 2011 TIFF Gala can be watched on TVR 1, Sunday, June 12, between 3.p.m and 7 p.m. TIFF TV, the festival's video platform, launched this year, will thus top a 10-day programme, during which it will offer TIFF fans exclusive transmissions from the most important festival events, coverage and materials dedicated to each festival day, archive material, retrospectives.
The social media and film distribution expert, Thomas Mai; the specialist Wolf Bosse from the German company Das Werk, the man behind the 3D effects in Pina; the essential director of the Romanian New Wave, Cristi Puiu; director Valdís Óskarsdóttir, BAFTA winner for the editing of Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind; producer Marin Karmitz and actor Michael York are the most important names which will meet the audience in Cluj for a series of exclusive workshops and master-classes.
TIFF’s influence in the cultural landscape of Cluj has become, from one year to another, increasingly more important. If, in 2002, when the first edition of TIFF opened its gates, offering its public 30 films screened in two cinemas, Cluj lacked cultural events at a national and international scale, in 2011 the situation is completely different: the town is hosting one of the most important film festivals in Europe, hundreds of Romanian and foreign guests come every year to Cluj for the 10 days of TIFF, the film feast offered to Cluj-based audience takes place not only in the 8 cinema theatres, but also in Unirii Square, Mănăştur, at Marty Cafe, The French Cultural Institute, TIFF Meeting Point – Art Museum, and even at Bonțida. The Festival also includes an already well-known film workshop for teenagers - Let's Go Digital!, an active film education programme for children - EducaTIFF, an alternative rock festival - AlternaTIFF, a complete series of events dedicated to fashion – under the title TIFFashion, theatre and exhibitions occupy an ever increasing role in the festival programme, which hosts, as well, special screenings and debates dedicated to the environment – grouped in the EcoTIFF programme, established sections dedicated to local cinema – Romanian Days, to Hungarian cinema – Hungarian Day, as well as to multiculturalism – this year, with Diversity Day.
Due to an awareness campaign carried out by TIFF, the host of the Closing Galas for the first festival editions and of hundreds of screenings and special events during the first 9 years of existence of the festival, Cinema Republica, at one point on the verge of being closed down, was completely modernized, in a partnership between the City Hall, RADEF Româniafilm and TIFF, and is waiting for the audience of the tenth edition of the festival with comfort and screening standards completely changed, at the same time having taken the name of the recipient for the Lifetime Achievement Award at TIFF 2009: Cinema Florin Piersic. The festival also supports – through donations and awareness campaigns – the rehabilitation of one of the most important cultural institution in Cluj: The National Art Museum – host of TIFF Meeting Point and of an impressive art collection, housed in a monument building, to which TIFF dedicates a special screening: on Monday, June 6, from 9 p.m., at the Students’ Cultural Center, there will be screened In a Better World (d. Susanne Bier, Denmark, 2010), winner in 2011 of an Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. All proceeds from ticket sales (10 Ron per ticket) will go to the Museum.
This year, Cinema Florin Piersic will also host the first 3D screenings in the history of TIFF, with two stunning art-house documentaries, signed by iconic figures of German cinema: Pina (Germany-France, 2011), directed by Wim Wenders, one of the most hyped films at this year’s edition of Berlin Film Festival, screened of June 4, at 8.30 p.m., and the Cave of Forgotten Dreams (USA-France, 2010), which will be screened on Sunday, June 5, at 10.30 p.m. – by Werner Herzog, the focus of one of the portraits in the 3x3 section.
The festival’s success and spectacular ascension have represented a clear signal and incentive for the film lovers in Cluj-Napoca, and the events dedicated to film, organized by various associations or cultural centers throughout the year have a major relevance in Cluj’s cultural landscape.
TIFF thus represents, at its tenth edition, a solid and unparalleled argument in electing Cluj as Romania’s choice for European Cultural Capital in 2020, which the festival completely endorses.
