Play Giurgiu: Weekend festival brings film screenings to southern Romania city lacking cinema hall

Play Giurgiu, a festival for children and teenagers, will present a program of films, workshops, and other cultural activities in the southern Romania city of Giurgiu, which lacks a cinema hall.

The event, taking place between June 27 and June 29, is organized by the animation festival Animest at the city's Tudor Vianu theater and on the esplanade in front of it. It will offer free outdoor screenings on a 12-meter screen, as well as indoor screenings of international and Romanian films (animation, fiction, and award-winning short films), along with poetry, animation, media education, and environmental exploration workshops.

The program includes films such as The Little Prince (France), Ernest and Celestine (France-Luxembourg), Falcon Lake (Canada-France), but also well-known titles, such as Karate Kid or Cireșarii, the film adaptation of the novel by Constantin Chiriță.

The program also includes poetry workshops with Carmen Tiderle, who hails from Giurgiu, environmental activities organized by Mai Mult Verde, and a "cultural refuge" created by the bookstore chain Cărturești, featuring a selection of books chosen for the festival program.

Play Giurgiu was founded by Mihai Mitrică, a Giurgiu native and the founding director of Animest, along with former colleagues from the city and a team of young volunteers.

"We experienced the last years of having a cinema in Giurgiu, but today's children grow up without such venues. Play is a gesture of giving back and responsibility - a festival made with the best intentions and minimal means, but with the hope that it can ignite something: curiosity, joy, the idea that film and culture deserve a wide reach," the founder explained.

(Photo: the organizers)