Romania’s longest-running film gathering, the Astra Film Festival (20-27 October, Sibiu), seems more determined than ever to attract the local audiences with what the organisers call “the cinema of truth”. Besides four competitions, detailed below, the festival offers various thematic sidebars – for example, “East to West”, “Family Portraits” and “Vulnerable Destinies”. The event also provides a generous selection of documentaries for children and teenagers, with other films being screened in a full-dome cinema.

Ten first, second or third features will be vying for the Astra Trophy, the top award in the New Voices in Documentary Cinema Competition: Alexander Horwath's Henry Fonda for President [+lire aussi :
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interview : Alexander Horwath
fiche film] (Austria/Germany), Farahnaz Sharifi's My Stolen Planet [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Germany/Iran), Narges Kalhor's Shahid [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Germany), Klára Tasovská's I'm Not Everything I Want to Be [+lire aussi :
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interview : Klára Tasovská
fiche film] (Austria/Czech Republic/Slovakia), Maka Gogaladze's Ever Since I Knew Myself [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Georgia), Maria Stoianova's Fragments of Ice [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Norway/Ukraine), Oksana Karpovych's Intercepted [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Canada/France/Ukraine), Paulo Carneiro's Savanna and the Mountain [+lire aussi :
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interview : Paulo Carneiro
fiche film] (Portugal/Uruguay), Nelson Makengo's Rising up at Night [+lire aussi :
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interview : Nelson Makengo
fiche film] (Belgium/Germany/Burkina Faso/Congo/Qatar) and Elizabeth Nichols' Flying Lessons (USA).

A further 11 films will be locking horns in the Central and Eastern European Competition: Elvis Lenić's Ship (Croatia), Luka Beradze's Smiling Georgia [+lire aussi :
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interview : Luka Beradze
fiche film] (Georgia/Germany), Kristine Nrecaj and Birthe Templin's House with a Voice (Germany), Grit Lemke's We Call Her Hanka (Germany), Olha Zhurba's Songs of Slow Burning Earth [+lire aussi :
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interview : Olha Zhurba
fiche film] (Denmark/France/Sweden/Ukraine), Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarčík's Photophobia [+lire aussi :
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interview : Ivan Ostrochovský et Pavol…
fiche film] (Czech Republic/Slovakia/Ukraine), Aslkod Kurov and Anonymous1's Of Caravan and the Dogs [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Germany), Lidia Duda's Forest [+lire aussi :
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interview : Lidia Duda
fiche film] (Czech Republic/Poland), Radu Ciorniciuc and Lina Vdovîi's Tata [+lire aussi :
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interview : Lina Vdovîi et Radu Ciorni…
fiche film] (Romania), Apolena Rychlíková's Limits of Europe [+lire aussi :
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interview : Apolena Rychlíková
fiche film] (Czech Republic/France/Slovakia), and Ioana Grigore's Leo Records: Strictly for Our Friends [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Romania).

The Romanian Competition comes with four world premieres, among them Tudor Platon's sophomore directorial effort, An Almost Perfect Family [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Romania), and veteran director Copel Moscu's Bloodied Photographs (Romania). Anelise Sălan's Forbidden (Romania), Dan Curean's Family Movies (Romania), Ana Lungu's Triton (Romania), Harald Friedl's 24 Hours (Austria), Ruxandra Gubernat's Imaginary Youth (Romania), Ilinca Călugăreanu's A Cautionary Tale (Romania/UK), Adrian Dohotaru's Zagor's Death (Romania), Diana Nicolae's Between Silence and Sin (Romania), Isabela Tent's Alice On & Off [+lire aussi :
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interview : Isabela Tent
fiche film] (Romania), Alexandra Gulea's Maia – Portrait with Hands (Germania/Romania) and Fecső Zoltán's As the Clock Runs (Romania) will also be in the running in this competition, which traditionally consists of films either produced or shot in Romania, or having a topic related to the country.

The festival also has a student-film contest, the Docschool Competition, which is mainly composed of short films produced by various European film schools. This year, there will also be a feature competing for the award, Jaroslav Beran's Return to Life (Czech Republic), and a medium-length documentary, Daniel Țîcu's Night All Day (Moldova).