As every October, the quaint Romanian city of Sibiu is about to become the backdrop for the country’s Astra Film Festival (15-22 October), which seems determined to enthusiastically celebrate its impressive status as Romania’s longest-running film festival, with as many as 30 editions under its belt. Thirty-one features will be competing in the festival’s three feature-film competitions, while 13 shorts will be in the running for the award in the Docschool competition. This edition kicks off on Sunday with a work-in-progress version of André Singer’s newest documentary, Meeting Zelenskyy, but the event also comes with some unwanted attention generated by an official protest of the Romanian Orthodox Church regarding the screening of Alexandru Solomon’s newest documentary, Arsenie. An Amazing Afterlife [+lire aussi :
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interview : Alexandru Solomon
fiche film], at the festival, which prompted the festival to issue a press release stating that at Astra, freedom of speech “is not negotiable”.

As every year, ten films, brought together in the New Voices of Documentary Cinema Competition, will be vying for the Astra Trophy: Sergio Guataquira Sarmiento’s Adieu Sauvage [+lire aussi :
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interview : Sergio Guataquira Sarmiento
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interview : Vlad Petri
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fiche film] (Spain/Germany/Italy/Netherlands); Asmae El Moudir’s The Mother of All Lies (Morocco/Egypt/Saudi Arabia/Qatar); Christian Einshøj’s The Mountains [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Denmark); Mickaël Bandela’s One Mother (France); and Paul B Preciado’s Orlando, My Political Biography [+lire aussi :
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interview : Paul B. Preciado
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Ten further films will be competing in the Central and Eastern European Competition: Mstyslav Chernov's 20 Days in Mariupol [+lire aussi :
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interview : Mstyslav Chernov
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interview : Otilia Babara
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interview : Nikola Boshnakov et Georgi…
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fiche film] (Georgia), Mátyás Kálmán's Paying a Visit to Fortuna [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Hungary/Croatia), Marek Kozakiewicz's Silent Love [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Poland/Germany) and Alisa Kovalenko's We Will Not Fade Away [+lire aussi :
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Besides Solomon's Arsenie. An Amazing Afterlife, ten other features either produced or shot in Romania or having a topic related to the country will be competing in the Romania Competition: Diana Gavra's Amar (Romania/Spain), Gautier Gumpper's Earth's Sweet Kiss (France), Elena Rebeca Carini's The Land You Belong (Italy/Romania), Ovidiu Georgescu's The Memory of the Moment (Romania), Eugene Buică's Mrs. Buică (Romania), Daniel Ioan Bărnuţi and Alexandra Lizeta Bărnuţi's My Muslim Husband [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Romania), Carla-Maria Teaha's Nora (Romania), Şerban Georgescu's Our Daily Bread (Romania), Moscu Copel's Paradise of the Naives (Romania), and Iulia Rugină's Playback [+lire aussi :
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Dozens of other movies will be shown in the Astra Film Junior sidebar, which is dedicated to children and teenagers, and in the full-dome selection.