Romanian director Cristi Puiu’s film competes in new Berlinale section Encounters

Malmkrog, the most recent film of Romanian director Cristi Puiu, has been selected in the new competition section of the Berlinale, Encounters.

The section runs for the first time this year. Its goal is “to support new voices in cinema and to give more room to diverse narrative and documentary forms in the official program.” A three-member jury will award prizes for Best Film, Best Director and a Special Jury Award from among the films selected in the competition.

Malmkrog, which will open the Encounters section, is described in a Berlinale press release as “a major work, a tour de force of words and mise en scène, a fresco that fascinates with precision and inventiveness.”

Malmkrog is a coproduction between Romania, Serbia, Switzerland, Sweden, Bosnia, and Macedonia. The screenplay was written by Cristi Puiu, adapting a text by Vladimir Solovyov. It stars Frédéric Schulz-Richard, Agathe Bosch, Diana Sakalauskaité, Marina Palii, Ugo Broussot, and István Téglás

At the same time, the film Servants, which stars Romanian actor Vlad Ivanov, was selected in the same section. Servants is a coproduction between Slovakia, Romania, Czech Republic, and Ireland.

A total of 15 titles have been selected in the Encounters section, each presenting “a different way of interpreting the cinematic story: autobiographical, intimate, political, social, philosophical, epic, surreal,” according to Carlo Chatrian, artistic director of the Berlinale.

The list of films selected in the Encounters section includes Tim Sutton’s Funny Face; Victor Kossakovsky’s Gunda; Matías Piñeiro’s Isabella; Pushpendra Singh’s The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs; Camilo Restrepo’s Los Conductos; Heinz Emigholz’s The Last City; Catarina Vasconcelos’s The Metamorphosis of Birds; Melanie Waelde’s Naked Animals; Alexander Kluge’s Orphea; Josephine Decker’s Shirley; Ivan Ostrochovský’s Servants; Sandra Wollner’s The Trouble with Being Born; C.W. Winter and Anders Edström’s The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin); and Mariusz Wilczyński’s