Romania’s Astra Film Festival announces official selection for 2024 edition

The International Documentary Festival Astra Film announced its selection for this year’s edition, which will take place in Sibiu from October 20 to 27. Most productions will be presented for the first time in the Romanian city.

The selection for the Romania competitive section includes 11 films that bring to the forefront “uncomfortable, even disturbing realities of recent history that we tend to avoid discussing, but which are catching up with us,” the organizers said.

“It also features life stories reflecting the realities of our society: minors left to fend for themselves and forced to take their destinies into their own hands, vulnerable elderly people facing inhumane situations, young gay individuals seeking love, acceptance, and equal rights, or seemingly perfect families struggling with inner turmoil that leads to radical actions,” reads the press release.

Six of the 11 selected films are premieres (four world premieres and two national ones). World premiers include Bloodied Photographs (dir. Copel Moscu, 2024), An Almost Perfect Family (dir. Tudor Platon, 2024), Forbidden (dir. Anelise Salan, 2024), and Family Movies(dir. Dan Curean, 2024). Meanwhile, Triton (dir. Ana Lungu, 2024) and 24 Hours (dir. Harald Friedl, 2024) are on the list of national premieres.

The productions in the Central and Eastern European section evoke specific realities, discussing the dissolution of the industrial heritage in former communist countries captured in a post-apocalyptic landscape (Ship - dir. Elvis Lenić), absurd gifts during election campaigns in Eastern European states (Smiling Georgia - dir. Luka Beradze), surprising customs from the ancestral world in the mountains of Albania (House With A Voice - dir. Kristine Nrecaj, Birthe Templin), or a unique community in Germany, the Sorbs (We Call Her Hanka - dir. Grit Lemke).

The dominant theme remains the war in Ukraine (Songs of the Slow Burning Earth - dir. Olha Zhurba; Photophobia - dir. Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarčík). Meanwhile, in Of Caravan And The Dogs (dir. Aslkod Kurov, Anonymous1), viewers get a unique perspective from behind the scenes of the resistance by journalists and activists in Russia, while the migrant crisis and the echoes of political tensions in Europe are felt at the borders of Poland (