Romania’s Transilvania Film Festival introduces Janovics Jenő Award at 2026 anniversary edition

The Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) will introduce the Janovics Jenő Award starting with its anniversary edition scheduled for June 12-21, 2026, in Cluj-Napoca. The new distinction, the organizers said, is dedicated “to the memory of a pioneer of Cluj and European cinema.”

The award will be presented annually to an international film personality “whose work reflects a pioneering spirit, bold vision, and a drive to open new paths within the industry,” reads the announcement.

A theatre director and head of the city’s Hungarian Theatre, Janovics Jenő (1872–1945) was among the first to see cinema as the defining art form of the 20th century. In the early 1910s, he helped transform Cluj into a filmmaking hub, launching fiction film production in the city and collaborating with the French company Pathé on Sárga csikó (The Yellow Foal), a film that achieved international circulation.

“The film circulated internationally, proving that cinema could be produced and exported from Transylvania - not only from Europe’s major capitals,” TIFF organizers said.

Between 1913 and the early 1920s, more than 60 silent films were produced in Cluj under Janovics’s patronage. He founded or supported several production companies and developed local infrastructure, training actors and crews who would later shape world cinema, including Michael Curtiz and Alexander Korda.

Over the years, Jenő Janovics has been a recurring presence within the Transilvania IFF program: from special cine-concert screenings of films such as Világrém (Terrors of the World) and A tolonc (The Exile, dir. Michael Curtiz), which he produced, to book launches, exhibitions, and the documentary Jenő Janovics, a Hungarian Pathé (dir. Bálint Zágoni).

From 2026 onward, his name will be permanently embedded in the festival through this eponymous award.

More details about the TIFF.25 program will be announced soon. Festival passes are already available online.

(Photo source: TIFF organizers)