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 [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Alexander Horwath
scheda film] (Austria/Germany), Farahnaz Sharifi's My Stolen Planet [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (Germany/Iran), Narges Kalhor's Shahid [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (Germany), Klára Tasovská's I'm Not Everything I Want to Be [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Klára Tasovská
scheda film] (Austria/Czech Republic/Slovakia), Maka Gogaladze's Ever Since I Knew Myself [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (Georgia), Maria Stoianova's Fragments of Ice [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (Norway/Ukraine), Oksana Karpovych's Intercepted [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (Canada/France/Ukraine), Paulo Carneiro's Savanna and the Mountain [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Paulo Carneiro
scheda film] (Portugal/Uruguay), Nelson Makengo's Rising up at Night [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Nelson Makengo
scheda 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 [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Luka Beradze
scheda 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 [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Olha Zhurba
scheda film] (Denmark/France/Sweden/Ukraine), Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarčík's Photophobia [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Ivan Ostrochovský, Pavol P…
scheda film] (Czech Republic/Slovakia/Ukraine), Aslkod Kurov and Anonymous1's Of Caravan and the Dogs [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (Germany), Lidia Duda's Forest [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Lidia Duda
scheda film] (Czech Republic/Poland), Radu Ciorniciuc and Lina Vdovîi's Tata [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Lina Vdovîi, Radu Ciorniciuc
scheda film] (Romania), Apolena Rychlíková's Limits of Europe [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Apolena Rychlíková
scheda film] (Czech Republic/France/Slovakia), and Ioana Grigore's Leo Records: Strictly for Our Friends [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (Romania).

The Romanian Competition comes with four world premieres, among them Tudor Platon's sophomore directorial effort, An Almost Perfect Family [+leggi anche:
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scheda 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 [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Isabela Tent
scheda 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).