31/05/2012 - 12 new political fiction and documentary features compete for the festival's top award

The first edition of Cinepolitica , the only Romanian festival focusing on political films, kicks off in Bucharest on June 11. Two sections will feature exclusively recent productions: the competition will include 12 new political fiction and documentary features competing for the festival's two awards (the Cinepolitica Trophy and the Cinepolitica Special Prize), while the Out of Competition sidebar will focus on recent political films honoured at important film festivals all over the world.

Opened by Luc Besson's The Lady [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (with Michelle Yeoh as Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese political leader placed under house arrest when her party won the elections in 1990) and closed by Inside Job, the documentary directed by Charles Ferguson, the first edition of Cinepolitica will screen Mohammad Rasoulof's Goodbye (France), Pablo Lorrain's Post Mortem [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Chile), Pierre Schoeller's The Minister [+see also:
film review
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interview: Pierre Schoeller
film profile] (pictured, France, Belgium), Peter Payer's What a Difference a Day Makes (Austria) and many others.

With the Romanian local elections on the way, the ongoing political campaign and a recrudescence of political talk-shows on national TV channels, there is no better time for a genre festival in Bucharest. Organized by the National Drama and Film University and The National School of Political and Administrative Studies with the support of the National Film Center, Cinepolitica will also feature special programmes, debates, master classes and workshops.

The festival's six days of screenings will be preceded by four special programmes: In memoriam Vaclav Havel, which features documentaries about the work of the late Czech president and also Leaving, the only film Vaclav Havel directed, about a chancellor who is set to step down from his position after years of service. The film premiered in the official selection at the Moscow IFF. Another programme will focus on films about the activity of the secret police in former communist countries, while The Politician section will feature Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nicola Giuliano
interview: Paolo Sorrentino
interview: Philippe Desandre
film profile] and Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus [+see also:
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film profile]. The fourth will focus on the political films of Costa-Gavras.