Four highly awarded documentaries, focusing on today’s topics like environmental awareness, the relation with the past or the approach of sexuality, will be screened in the ”Doc-minică” section of Ceau, Cinema! Festival ninth edition, which will take place during July 14th – 17th in Timişoara.
The program will also propose to the audience a rich selection of local films, produced in the Banat region, like the documentary “The Road Ahead – Via Transilvanica” (2022), by Mircea Gherase.
”You are Ceaușescu to me” (2021), the first feature film of director Sebastian Mihăilescu, is a hybrid documentary in which young people aged between 15 and 22, coming from different backgrounds, are going to auditions for the character of Nicolae Ceaușescu as a young man, in the mid-30’s, in the attempt of finding the motivation behind his deeds. The result is both a portrait of the new generation and a snapshot of the former communist leader heritage.
The documentary was designated the best film from Central and Eastern Europe and won the Best Cinematography Award at Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival and the Award for Best First Feature Film at DocLisboa festival.
“Taming the Garden” (2021), of the Georgian female director Salomé Jashi, speaks about the unusual hobby of a Georgian magnate and former prime-minister, who buys old trees from various places in the country, excavates and transplants them in his private garden. The documentary had its world premiere last year at Sundance and was nominated at the European Film Academy Awards.
Screened last year at Cannes and also nominated at the European Film Academy Awards, “Babi Yar. Context” (2021), of the well-known Ukrainian filmmaker Serghei Loznitsa, is exclusively made of archive images and shows the context in which took place the massacre from Babi Yar, near Kyiv, when the Nazi troops killed 30.000 Jews during three days in September 1941. The film is part of the focus that Ceau, Cinema! dedicates to Ukrainian cinematography.
In her latest documentary, “MUTZENBACHER” (2022), the Austrian director Ruth Beckerman puts on an audition for men of all ages, who are being asked to read and comment on several fragments from a famous and outrageous erotic novel released in Wien at the beginning of the 20th century. The film won this year’s Encounters section at Berlin and it is screened in premiere in Romania at Ceau, Cinema!, with the support of the Austrian Cultural Forum from Bucharest.
This year’s edition of the festival also brings a record number of titles in the section “Films from Banat”, dedicated to productions from the Banat area or made by local artists.
The headliner is the documentary “The road ahead – Via Transilvanica” (2022). Filmed, directed and edited by Mircea Gherase from Timișoara, the film captures the arrangement of the longest segment on Via Transilvanica trail: Caraș-Severin. Unintentionally, the film is a love letter for Romania ant its nature.
The same section inludes the short films “Triplex Confinium” (2021, documentary), by Maria Bălănean, “Watermelon Republic” (2021, documentary, Hungary), by Katalin Erdödi, Máté Körösi, Orsolya Török-Illyes and Antje Schiffers, “Tunnel” (2022), by Bogdan Pușlenghea, “LI8E9” (2022, documentary), by Ioana Satmari and Fabian Leiba, “Mouse B” (2021, animation), by Ioachim Stroe, and “The Marble Village” (2012, documentary), by Ioana Dorobanțu-Gordon.
Also, the cameraman and director from Timișoara, Cristian Ilea will have a special screening of his documentaries “The Carpathian Wildlife, Wealth for the People” (2016) and “Neighbours – a Film About the Cohabitation with Bears” (2022) and he will hold a workshop for teenagers on how to film wildlife.
The screenings of the ninth edition of Ceau, Cinema! will take place at Cinema Victoria, the Outdoor Theater and Capitol cinema hall from Banat Philarmonic, Traian Square and Faber.
More details on the festival are available on ceaucinema.ro, as well as on the related Facebook and Instagram pages.
Ceau, Cinema! Festival is dedicated to European cinema and is organized by the Associations Pelicula Culturală and Marele Ecran.
Funded by Timișoara CityHall, through the Project Center.
Project funded by the Timiș County Council through the Nonrefundable Funding Program TimCultura 2022.
Sponsors: Groupama Ensurance, HELLA Romania, Conceptual Lab by Theo Nissim.
Main cultural partners: the German Cultural Center from Timişoara, the Polish Institute from Bucharest, the Austrian Cultural Forum Bucharest, the Liszt Institute – the Hungarian Cultural Center Bucharest, the French Institute from Timișoara, the Czech Center Bucharest.
Supported by: Porsche Timişoara, Tazz, Little Hanoi, Ibis Timisoara City Center, Ovride, InLight Center, Fundaţia Cartea Călătoare, „Ceva de Spus” Association, „Cetăţean de Traian” Association, Faber, Cinema Victoria, Banat National Museum, Animest, Cinemazero Cultural Association, „Prin Banat” Association, Timişoara la cutie, the House of Arts – the County Direction for Culture Timiş, Gottlob Mairie, European Parliament Office for Romania, One World Romania, Claudia Roşu, La Două Bufniţe, iaBilet, Hostel Cornel.
Media partners: Kiss FM, All about Romanian Cinema (AaRC), Ziarul Metropolis.