Two Romanian documentaries selected for 2020 Sundance Film Festival

Acasa, My Home, Romanian director Radu Ciorniciuc's debut feature film, and Colectiv, the documentary about the 2015 Colectiv nightclub fire in Bucharest directed by Alexander Nanau, have been selected for the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Acasa, My Home will have its international premiere in the festival’s documentary competition. The Romanian documentary is one of 12 titles selected for this category, out of over 14,000 submissions from all over the world.

The documentary tells the story of a family that lived for 20 years in the wilderness of the Văcărești Delta, until the place gained the status of a protected area - Văcărești Nature Park - the first urban nature park in Romania. Director Radu Ciorniciuc followed the Enache family’s great adventure for four years: from a life in complete harmony with nature, to the challenging life in the great urban jungle of the capital.

The film crew also started a social project to which numerous specialists and humanitarian organizations contributed. The family’s 11 members lived in isolation from society: without documents, without education or access to health. Now, all nine children in the Enache family have ID papers, go to school and are regularly seen by doctors, while the adults have stable jobs.

Colectiv, which premiered at the Venice film festival this year, was selected in the Sundance Film Festival’s Spotlight section. This program is a tribute to the top titles that had the world premiere in the previous year.

Produced by Alexander Nanau Production in co-production with HBO Europe and Samsa Film, colectiv takes a behind-the-scenes look at the fight against corruption that followed the Colectiv fire, which resulted in the death of 64 people. It tells the story of the first year after the fire and follows both the authorities and the journalists in their interaction to search for and expose the truth. In October this year, the film received the Golden Eye award for Best Film in the International Documentary Film Competition category of the Zurich Film Festival.

The 2020 edition of the Sundance Film Festival is scheduled for January 23–February 2.

(Opening photo: Acasa, My Home; photo credit:Mircea Topoleanu)