Romania’s biggest film event, the Transilvania International Film Festival, “comes of age” with its 18th edition, which will take place from 31 May-9 June in the city of Cluj-Napoca. The organisers have announced the 12 titles that will be competing for the festival’s top award, the Transilvania Trophy: it is a very European-centric competition, with all of the 12 first or second features being European co-productions, and as many as nine being fully European.

On this year’s selection, Transilvania artistic director Mihai Chirilov says: “I was mainly interested in those films that do not necessarily seek connections with the socio-political environment of the present, choosing either to ignore it completely or to subtly make use of it in their intimate stories, explored courageously while paying no heed to the consequences.” 

The Transilvania IFF takes pride in the fact that two of the competing titles took part in the Transilvania Pitch Stop, the festival’s rapidly expanding industry platform. Said movies are Marius Olteanu’s Monsters. [+lire aussi :
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interview : Marius Olteanu
fiche film] (Romania), and Natasha Merkulova and Aleksei Chupov’s The Man Who Surprised Everyone [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Russia/France/Estonia). 

The other ten titles set to lock horns are Louis Garrel’s A Faithful Man [+lire aussi :
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interview : Louis Garrel
fiche film] (France), May el-Toukhy's Queen of Hearts [+lire aussi :
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interview : Gustav Lindh
interview : May el-Toukhy
fiche film] (Denmark/Sweden), Tonia Mishiali's Pause [+lire aussi :
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interview : Tonia Mishiali
fiche film] (Cyprus/Greece), César Esteban Alenda and José Esteban Alenda's Sin fin [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Spain), Alejandro Landes' Monos [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Colombia/Netherlands/Argentina/Germany/Denmark/Sweden/Uruguay/Switzerland), Mikhail Idov's The Humorist [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Russia/Latvia/Czech Republic), Burak Cevik's Belonging [+lire aussi :
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interview : Burak Çevik
fiche film] (Turkey/Canada/France), Hlynur Pálmason's A White, White Day [+lire aussi :
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interview : Hlynur Pálmason
fiche film] (Iceland/Denmark/Sweden), Barnaby Southcombe's Scarborough [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (UK) and Nora Fingscheidt's System Crasher [+lire aussi :
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interview : Nora Fingscheidt
fiche film] (Germany).

The jury, consisting of Canadian director Denis Côté, Protagonist Pictures executive director Mike Goodridge and Romanian director Constantin Popescu, among others, will announce the winners during a gala ceremony on 8 June.