09/09/2025 - The Romanian festival boasts a new competition, DocShorts, and a longer edition this year

Usually a seven-day event, the Astra Film Festival, Romania’s most prominent documentary gathering, will have a nine-day edition in 2025, hosted in the quaint city of Sibiu between 17 and 26 October. As many as 70 documentaries will be shown across five competitions and several thematic sections, ranging in themes from 'Masculinity in Crisis', 'When the Press Becomes a Fake News Factory', to 'Our Lives Online' and '#Westerners – A Critical View'.

“Documentaries remain a source of clarity and truth, and Astra is an occasion to come together to watch stories that matter, to reflect collectively and to equip ourselves with a deeper understanding of the world around us,” said the festival’s founding director Dumitru Budrala in a press release.

Nine first, second or third features will be vying for the Astra Trophy, the top award in the New Voices of Documentary Cinema Competition: Myrid Carten’s A Want in Her [+see also:
film review
interview: Myrid Carten
film profile] (Ireland/UK/Netherlands), Marcin Wierzchowski’s Das Deutsche Volk [+see also:
film review
interview: Marcin Wierzchowski
film profile] (Germany), Igor Bezinović’s Fiume o morte! [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Croatia/Italy/Slovenia), Aboozar Amini’s Kabul, Between Prayers [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Netherlands/Belgium), Aminatou Echard’s The Big Everything (France/Belgium), Carolina Campo Lupo’s The Fable of the Turtle and the Flower (Uruguay/Spain), David Bim’s To the West, in Zapata [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Cuba/Spain), Juanjo Pereira’s Under the Flag, the Sun [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Paraguay), and Farah Kassem’s We Are Inside [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Lebanon/Denmark/Qatar).

A further 11 films will be locking horns in the Central and Eastern European Competition: Ketevan Vashagashviili’s 9-Month Contract [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Georgia/Germany/Bulgaria), Margit Lillak’s Becoming Roosi (Estonia/Germany), Filip Remunda’s Happiness to All [+see also:
film review
interview: Filip Remunda
film profile] (Czech Republic/Netherlands/France), Arjun Talwar’s Letters from Wolf Street [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Poland/Germany), Alisa Kovalenko’s My Dear Théo [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Ukraine), Petra Seliškar’s The Mountain Won’t Move [+see also:
film review
film profile] (France/Slovenia/Macedonia), David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin’s Mr. Nobody Against Putin [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Denmark/Czech Republic), Masha Chernaya’s The Shards [+see also:
trailer
interview: Masha Chernaya
film profile] (Georgia/Germany), Dragoş Turea’s Ultimate Weapon (Moldova/Romania), and Alina Simone’s Black Snow (USA). 

Finally, ten films will be shown in the Romanian Competition, which is open not only to Romanian productions, but also to features exploring topics related to the country: Ágnes Maksay’s Wandering Through Mountains and Valleys, Singing (Hungary/Romania), Anca Hirte’s The Living Ones (Romania), Paula Onet’s Still Nia (Romania/France), Alexandra Gulea’s Miriam Răducanu – Rigor and Sense (Romania), Alexandru Mavrodineanu’s Love Hurts (Romania), Tom Heinemann’s Ikea Loves Wood (Denmark), Simona Constantin’s Caliu: Nothing Else, What Else Can I Do? (Romania), Andra MacMasters's Bright Future [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Romania/South Korea), Adina Sădeanu’s Anatomy of Ordinary Crimes (Romania), and Marian Voicu’s #savesorina (Romania/Spain). 

Beside the festival’s traditional short film competition, DocSchool, usually dedicated to directors graduating from various film schools around the world, Astra 2025 is debuting a second short film competition, DocShorts, open to all short films.