The 27th edition of the French Film Festival in Romania is to take place between March 15th and March 26th in Bucharest and 12 other cities in the country, namely Cluj-Napoca, Timişoara, Iaşi, Arad, Braşov, Brăila, Constanţa, Craiova, Sfântu Gheorghe, Sibiu, Suceava and Târgu Mureş.

The theme of this year's edition, Cinéma, mon amour / Cinema, my love, is meant to show support for cinema halls across the country, which have found themselves in a difficult situation for many years.

The kiss in the festival's poster is a reference to French filmmaker Jean Eustache, and the event will screen two of his films in restored versions: Mes petites amoureuses and La maman et la putain. The latter received the Grand Jury Prize at the 1973 Cannes Festival. In Bucharest, the film will be screened in the presence of a special guest, to be announced.

To mark the 30th anniversary of Romania's joining the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), which promotes French language and cultural diversity, the festival will include in its program the section Pépites francophones. This will showcase a selection of films presented at top international festivals. Among them is Ursula Meier's La ligne, a French-Swiss production selected at this year's Berlinale, telling the story of a dysfunctional family.

The festival will also host, in partnership with TV5 Monde, the launch in Romania of the free, French-language streaming platform TV5MONDE. The platform, which showcases the diversity of French-speaking cultures around the world, will offer subtitles in Romanian, the sixth subtitle language integrated into the platform.

The event will include its traditional sections covering the Panorama of the films of the year, the Young Talents competition - feature films, and the Young Talents competition - short films.

The Panorama section will showcase ten films that were popular with the audience and film critics during the past year. Among them are Louis Garrel's L'innocent and Alice Diop's Saint Omer, the winner of the Silver Lion at the 2022 Venice Festival.

The Young Talents competition - feature films will present productions such as Anton Balekdjian's Mourir à Ibiza and David Depesseville's Astrakan. A public's choice award, amounting to EUR 1,000 and offered by the French Institute in Romania, will be granted in this section.

In the Young Talents competition - short films section, a jury made up of film critics Iulia Necşulescu, Codrin Vasile and Ştefan Ristea will select the section's winner, who will receive a stay at the Résidence de Poche of the French Institute in Romania, the setting for them to develop a feature film project.

The festival will also host a debate aimed at finding possible solutions to increasing the number of cinema halls in the country.

(Photo: Ifeelstock / Dreamstime)

simona@romania-insider.com