Film festivals in Romania: What's on the agenda for 2021

Several of the largest and longest-running film festivals in the country have already announced the dates for this year's editions. Many events are scheduled to take place in summer, when outdoor screenings are an option, and have kept an online part, which allowed them last year to reach a wider audience. Below is a roundup of some of the announcements so far.

One World Romania

Documentary and human rights festival One World Romania plans to hold this year’s edition between May 21 and June 6, showcasing a program of more than 60 films from all over the world, most of them shown for the first time in the country. The festival will cover this year the theme of femininity and feminism in various cultures in the world, social environments, and eras. The organizers plan to hold screenings in Bucharest between May 21 and May 30 at Elvire Popesco Cinema, Romanian Peasant Museum Cinema, and other indoor and outdoor venues in the city. A series of online screenings, available from anywhere in the country, is scheduled for May 31 – June 6.

Transilvania International Film Festival TIFF

Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), the largest film festival in the country, plans to hold its 20th edition between July 23 and August 1. The Cluj-Napoca-based event, which also has editions in several other cities in the country, prepared a program of open-air and indoor screenings, if the context allows them, within the capacity set by the authorities. It is put together “with the hope that local norms concerning open-air public events will align to those in most European countries, where the number of people allowed to attend goes up to 1,000 or even more,” the organizers said in February, stressing that safety measures remain a priority. As it happened last year, a selection of films will be available online, on the festival’s VoD platform TIFF Unlimited. Filmmaker Nae Caranfil is set to receive the festival’s excellence award at this year’s edition.

Anonimul International Independent Film Festival

Anonimul International Independent Film Festival, held every August in the Danube Delta, said it would hold this year’s edition between August 9 and August 15 and already opened the submissions for the short film competition. The location of the festival is the isolated Sfântu Gheorghe, accessible only by water or air.

Astra Film Festival

The event dedicated to documentary film held yearly in Sibiu plans a two-stage edition. Between