Astra Film Festival presents the real Romania through its diverse selection of documentary feature films

The 29th edition of the Astra Film Festival, which will take place between October 9 and 16, at the Astra open-air Museum in Sibiu, presents a selection of the most recent Romanian documentary films.

The screenings will take place in the presence of the filmmakers, who will enter a dialogue with the audience.

"This autumn's edition will truly be a festival, in all the brightest meanings of that word, considering that most of the films in the official selection are premieres and bring never-before-seen content to the big screen,” says Dumitru Budrala, director and founder of the Astra Film Festival. “These are poorly financed productions that spent years in the making, which is another argument to support their claim as relevant and valuable content.”

The film that will be opening the festival is Cătălina Tesăr and Dana Bunescu’s The Chalice. Of Sons and Daughters (2022) – an incursion into the fascinating world of the Roma ‘cortorari’. The film shows what life is like for this traditional Roma community from Transylvania, exploring ancient customs, marked by arranged marriages, at the center of which is symbolically placed the golden cup handed down from generation to generation. The film was conceived a few years ago within the DokTank Astra Film laboratory program, and in order to document it, Cătălina Tesăr, Ph.D. in anthropology at University College London, spent two years among the locals, during which time she learned their language and customs.

Community and tradition are also discussed in two other films: Memories from the community of Gheorgheni and Frumoasa by Armine Vosganian (2022) – a film that features 100-year-old Peter, the only man from Frumoasa who still speaks Armenian and knows the customs of earlier times; and Alexandra Gulea’s deep foray into the community of Aromanians in their historical exile, between the mountains and the sea – Flying Sheep (2022).

Writer Adina Popescu and director Iulian Ghervas bring to the silver screen a documentary film that tells the story of a football team that has been in the bottom league for decades, and of a rural community in the middle of Transylvania - Eagles from Șaga (2021).

Documentary filmmakers are still studying the impact that the communist regime had on the lives of so many people.

Dragoș Zămosteanu’s In search of the engineer Dragomirescu (2022) is a story about a man that was sent to prison for singing Romania’s present-day national anthem Deșteaptă-te, Române!, never to return.