AS PART OF A SPECIAL SERIES OF ONLINE DISCUSSIONS, WE TAKE A DEEPER DIVE INTO THE FEATURES OF THE FOCUS ROMANIA SECTION THROUGH ITS DIRECTORS. WATCH BELOW.
Within BEAST TALKS and the Focus Romania section, Simona Constantin moderated a discussion with director Dragoș Turea. They talked about the documentary “The Soviet Garden”.
This very personal feature film explores rare images in order to portray the industrial shock imposed on Moldova by the Soviet State while revealing Nikita Khrushchev’s secret plan to transform the nation into the Soviet garden.
The documentary will be available until the 4th of April on Filmin Portugal, and its screening is supported by Instituto Cultural Romeno Lisboa. You can watch the whole conversation regarding this work below:
We also had the presence of the investigative journalist and director of Acasă, My Home, Radu Ciorniciuc. The conversation about the film was be moderated by Bohdan Zhuk.
The Romanian documentary deals with the drastic change in the lives of a family of eleven people, forced to abandon their idyllic routine of two decades to live in a small apartment in the heart of the metropolis. You can find the feature, that won last year’s Sundance Film Festival Prize, on Filmin Portugal until April 4th.
Its screening was also supported by Instituto Cultural Romeno Lisboa. Watch the discussion surrounding the film below:
BEAST TALKS #3: V4 Screen
AS PART OF A SPECIAL SERIES OF ONLINE DISCUSSIONS, WE TAKE A DEEPER DIVE INTO THE FEATURES OF THE V4 SCREEN SECTION THROUGH ITS DIRECTORS. WATCH BELOW.
Within BEAST TALKS and the V4 Screen section, filmmaker Piotr Domalewski talked live about his work in “I Never Cry”, in a discussion moderated by Bohdan Zhuk.
Ola, a seventeen-year-old girl from a small town, leaves for a foreign country alone. It will be her life’s journey, a journey into the unknown, in which she will try to reconnect with her distant father.
“I Never Cry” is a part of the V4 Screen section, which features works from the Visegrad Group countries.
Its screening is supported by the International Visegrad Fund and the Embassy of Poland in Portugal. You can watch the discussion below:
Although BEAST could not have a live broadcast with the director of “SWEAT”, Magnus von Horn, he sent the festival a heartwarming video with the whole team of the production.
“SWEAT” reports three days into the life of fitness motivator Sylwia Zając, whose social media presence made her a celebrity. Although she has hundreds of thousands of followers, she is surrounded by loyal officials and admired by acquaintances, she still pursues true intimacy.
Its screening is also supported by the International Visegrad Fund and the Embassy of Poland in Portugal. You can watch the whole talk below:
BEAST TALKS #2: V4 Screen
AS PART OF A SPECIAL SERIES OF ONLINE DISCUSSIONS, WE TAKE A DEEPER DIVE INTO THE FEATURES OF THE V4 SCREEN SECTION THROUGH ITS DIRECTORS. WATCH BELOW.
Filmmaker Marko Škop talked live about his work in “Let There Be Light”, in a discussion moderated by Bohdan Zhuk.
In the feature-length film, we meet Milan, a father of three who works in Germany to support his family, who lives in Slovakia. Visiting them at Christmas, he learns that Adam, his eldest son, is definitely hanging out with the wrong crowd. The death of the teenager’s classmate will reveal to Milan and his wife the real truth about their son, their family, and the community around them.
Its screening is supported by the International Visegrad Fund and the Embassy of Slovakia in Portugal. You can watch the discussion below:
Within BEAST TALKS and the V4 Screen section, the festival also broadcasted a talk with director Cecília Felméri, responsible for the Hungarian feature “Spiral”. The film is available until April 4th on Filmin Portugal. The discussion was moderated by journalist Teresa Vieira.
In “Spiral”, we get to know an old house and a mysterious lake amid Hungarian nature. There, a man and two women form a strange love triangle. A history of crises, regrets and unknowns.
Its screening is supported by the International Visegrad Fund and the Embaixada da Hungria em Lisboa. You can watch the whole talk below:
BEAST TALKS: V4 SCREEN
As part of a special series of online discussions, we take a deeper dive into the features of the V4 Screen section through its directors. Watch below.
As part of this special online program of discussions with members of the film industry in Central and Eastern Europe, director Ivan Ostrochovský and producer Katarina Tomkova had a conversation mediated by Bohdan Zhuk, about the feature film co-produced by Slovakia, Romania, and the Czech Republic, “Servants”.
Directed by Ostrochovský, the film addresses seminary students Michal and Juraj in the context of 1980s Czechoslovakia. The title is part of the V4 Screen section and will be available until April 4th on the Filmin Portugal platform within the Visegrad Film Hub project, in partnership with the International Visegrad Fund.
The discussion is already available, as you can watch it below:
Within BEAST TALKS and the V4 Screen section, the duo of directors Nándor Lörincz and Bálint Nagy, responsible for the feature film “As Far as I Know”, also had a discussion moderated by the journalist Teresa Vieira.
“As Far as I Know” is based on a true-life story and talks of the complicated process of criminal proceedings initiated due to rape from the perspective of the victim’s spouse Dénes. That is the beginning of a sharply tense hunt for truth on the trail of suspicions, in the course of which the prejudices of the audience are also incisively mapped.
The feature film by Lörincz and Nagy was co-produced by Romania and Hungary. Its screening was supported by the Embassy of Hungary in Lisbon, as well as by the International Visegrad Fund.
You can watch the whole conversation with the duo below:
Review: “Acasă, My Home”
The filmmaker and researcher Marta Reis, from Cineclube do Porto, reviews “Acasă, My Home“, from director Radu Ciorniciuc.
From the valley of weeping to the concrete jungle, Radu Ciorniciuc’s documentary, Acasă My Home, is set in contemporary Bucharest, the capital and largest city of Romania. The Enache family has been living on an island in the wetlands surrounding Lake Văcăreșt for twenty years. As Vacaresti Park develops, the Enache’s are evicted from the new Urban Nature Park. Radu Ciorniciuc accompanied this family for four years and recorded the event.
At the lake the children can run free, swim and play with animals but social services perceive that they are not properly taken care of and order them to attend school. For Gica, the father, school is not an option as it is very far from the lake, he does not want to be separated from his children and also refuses to go back to living in the city.
The municipality finds them an apartment in the city but we can see that there is a lot of learning for them to do in order to adjust. And while the children start going to school, and try to adapt to the new way of life, the adults are becoming increasingly ill. Nonetheless, the mother does not seem to have any regrets and wants to help her children succeed. Vali, the oldest son, is able to find proper work and is trying to adjust to living in the city but collides with his father’s views. However, Gika has no ally in his struggle to go live elsewhere. Homesickness prevails and, as Vali moves out, the mother is not able to provide for the children.
Once again the Enache’s are evicted… Mihaela, the local counselor, is always very supportive and keeps trying to help them settle in spite of their seemingly lack of commitment. As Vali seems to be thriving we wish that the children will follow his example.
Ciorniciuc’s observational documentary is fascinating. By accompanying the Enache family so closely in their day-to-day lives we become very compassionate. The images shot in nature and in the lake are very idyllic but we can see the Mother and children working hard all the time. People and animals share the same space and it is heartbreaking to acknowledge the impoverished and dangerous conditions of the family at the lake. We feel sorry for the children being kept in a bubble in fear of the outside world and then abruptly forced to adapt to a foreign reality.
We do not know exactly what happened that propelled Gika to go live in the middle of nowhere but as they settle in the city and are shouted at we understand that he surely has been discriminated against and wanted to shield his children from prejudice. Living in ignorance and deprivation might have been disadvantageous for the family’s integration in society but with proper acknowledgment and more empathetic professionals from all areas working together in the field hopefully, this new generation will flourish!
BEAST IFF presents NINANIÑA and Cristina Pop-Tiron shortly after its Opening Ceremony
Watch below the performance of the artists NINANIÑA and Cristina Pop-Tiron, which took place shortly after the Festival’s Opening Ceremony.
On the 24th of March, at 8 pm, the 4th edition of BEAST International Film Festival launched with an Opening Ceremony, live on Facebook. At 8:30 pm, it was time for the artistic duo NINANIÑA and Cristina Pop-Tiron to celebrate the beginning of our online edition. The performance was streamed live on Facebook and Youtube.
“DOR: Uma Lembrança” is an audiovisual experience that projects and reflects the feeling of dor/saudade, often found in Romanian folklore. During the performance, the visual elements fuse with the soundscape and open a space of dialogue between traditional and contemporary worldviews, suggesting a synergetic cathartic experience.
You can watch the whole act below:
BEAST IFF kicked off on the 24th of March with an online Opening Ceremony
The fourth edition of BEAST International Film Festival has kicked off through a special live streaming – you can watch it below.
On the 24th of March, at 8 pm, the 4th edition of BEAST International Film Festival launched with an Opening Ceremony, live on Facebook.
The Festival Director, Radu Sticlea, presented the BEAST IFF sections, the highlights of the program, as well as our partners alongside the festival moderator, Rita Marinho.
You can watch the whole inauguration below.
Editorial: Focus Romania, clashing identities
A look into the Focus Romania program through the eyes of Bianca Stanea, the producer of BEAST IFF.
The cinematographic landscape of Romania is ever-changing, multi-layered and internationally recognized. Being the only Latin country from the East, combined with Oriental, Slavic and Balkanic influences, its cultural scene has always been a very eclectic one. As soon as the film world started detaching itself from portrayals of the Communist Era, there was an interesting shift of paradigm that resulted in the above-mentioned eclecticism. Romania is a country of contrasts, of extreme highs and extreme lows, of outsiders, of migrants and most of all a country that is dealing with an untreated (but not incurable) identity crisis. In this intricate web of untold stories and unheard voices, rises the Romanian documentary.
The four selected films for the FOCUS ROMANIA program are very different aesthetically and story-wise, nevertheless, they portray the complex relationships between the protagonists and the landscape. Geography becomes more than a means of spatial measurement, but a reflection of the struggle to belong.
The proposed cinematographic journey breaks the conventional borders of the country and takes us as far as Serbia, Moldova and the USA. In the clash between the East and the West in terms of values, the films present two important attitudes: the reaction to globalization, to freedom as it is understood by the capitalist society and the reaction to the long term effects of the communist past.
Ivana Mladenović (‘Ivana the terrible’) is a Serbian filmmaker that lives in Bucharest. She travels back home to Kladovo, a city on the border between Serbia and Romania. Her two lives are divided by a bridge that crosses the Danube River. In this docu-fiction feature, the filmmaker stages a conflictual return to her family, based on her real-life struggle with health issues that all the other characters seem to believe can be resolved by getting married, settling down and embracing motherhood.
Gică Enache and his family (‘Acasă, My home’) have lived all their lives in a swamp in the middle of Bucharest. As soon as this place is turned into a natural reservation, they are forced to move into an apartment building in a social neighbourhood. They exchange nature for concrete from one day to the other. The director Radu Ciorniciuc manages to create a very tender, yet sometimes rough portrait of the family through his observational documentary, highlighting a bidirectional type of discrimination: the Enache’s are firstly discriminated because they are Roma and secondly because they chose a different kind of lifestyle than the socially accepted conventions.
Nina Cassian (‘The Distance between Me and Me’), a famous Romanian artist, tells her story of the struggle between oppressive regimes. She ends up in a forced exile in New York, eventually, becomes an American citizen and never returns to her country. Based on a large archive of visuals from Nina’s past, she speaks about politics, arts and the image of the woman during the Communist era. As one of the directors, Mona Nicoară says, ‘Nina’s story teaches necessary lessons in a time when creative freedom is once again threatened by the rise of authoritarianism and extremism.’
Dragoș Turea (‘The Soviet Garden’) is a filmmaker from Moldova, an over disputed neighbouring country of Romania. He starts an investigation trying to correlate the increase in cases of cancer, with Soviet agricultural experiments. He travels back and forth in time, through interviews and archive footage, unearthing well-kept secrets. In this Moldova-Romania co-production, the director’s starting point is a very personal one, the strange death of his grandmother. However, he ultimately manages to assert the atrocities of the regime and to deromanticize the Soviet imagery.
After all, these films are not just about travelling through space and time, but about transformative journeys. They showcase strong protagonists who dared to define the system, to speak out, to be different, to expose themselves and the corrupted ones around them. In this melting pot of cultures and influences, Romania becomes a country of diverse ideologies, oscillating between the Western progressive values and the nostalgic feeling towards its past.
Even though there is a constant fight against diversity, the collective efforts of artists are starting to push back against this current of ultranationalism, hate and discrimination. Cinema is finally embracing this identity crisis and generates meaningful artwork from it, becoming an incubator of new ways of storytelling, aesthetics, imagery and powerful topics.
BIANCA STANEA PRODUCER OF BEAST INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
The Mirages of Freedom: already available for national and international audiences, free of charge
Our collaborative project with the Dovzhenko Center, in Ukraine, is available without any fee.
We are pleased to present The Mirages of Freedom, our program in partnership with the Dovzhenko Center, which pays tribute to Ukraine and its experimental short films produced between the 1960s and 1980s.
The program will be available between 24 and 28 March, free of charge, for national and international audiences through the festival’s online library – to get access, just CLICK HERE.
Among its titles are works by the school of Ukrainian Poetic Cinema and its leader Sergei Parajanov; student films created by the future icons of Ukrainian cinema, Leonid Osyka and Roman Balayan; and shorts produced by Kyivnaukfilm Studio’s creative team in the 1980s.
These titles present the beauty and the tragedy of late Soviet informal art, ranging from documentary chronicles of family life to parody comedies, which are marked by absurdity and irony.
VISEGRAD FILM HUB: V4 SCREEN, A FILM JOURNEY
The V4 Screen section aims to promote cinema from the Visegrad Group countries to the Portuguese and international audience.
The V4 Screen program is part of the Visegrad Film Hub, a project co-financed by the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia through the International Visegrad Fund, in collaboration with several cultural Central European institutions.
This year’s program proposes a diverse selection, which can take further the artistic discourse of the project and introduce its audience to new exciting works from the region.
Selected for V4 Screen:
As Far As I Know Nándor Lörincz, Bálint Nagy | Hungary, Romania | 2020 | FIC | 117’ | SUB. PT/EN
I Never Cry Piotr Domalewski | Poland, Ireland | 2020 | FIC | 100’ | SUB. PT/EN
Let There Be Light Marko Škop | Slovakia | 2019 | FIC | 93’ | SUB. PT/EN
