Romanian film review – Dare to experiment: BIEFF

In case you haven't heard yet: Bucharest is just hosting the only film festival dedicated to experimental cinema in this country so if you haven't grabbed your tickets yet, don't waste any more hour! The Bucharest International Experimental Short Film Festival – in short, BIEFF – was initiated four years ago with the aim of especially promoting Romanian experiments in a cinema dominated by a 'classic' narrative style and features mostly short films. I am happy to see it growing beautifully and this edition has some impressive titles in store. The international competition features solid entries like Cecília Felméri's Pastila fericirii/The Pill of Happiness, a very funny take on reality shows, revenge fantasies and annoying public employees, the compelling The Mother, The Son and the Architect, or the wildly original Tokyo Giants, directed by festival darling Nicolas Provost. BIEFF also boasts collaborations with prestigious festivals such as the Mecca of intellectual film experiments, the Oberhausen Film Festival in Germany, the Directors' Fortnight(Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) a non-competitive section of the Cannes festival focusing on emerging authors, the IDFA, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, and other major fests. And the effect of these collaborations is amazing, there are some true masterpieces shown in these programmes, such as the brilliant The Mass of Men, a thrilling and disturbing take on bureaucracy and everyday oppression, a perfect film on all levels, or Radu Jude's lovely O umbră de nor/Shadow of a Cloud. BIEFF is especially eager to transcend boundaries and there is a lot to be discovered in terms of genre-bending entries combining every possible cinematic category, style or genre (fiction with documentary material, animation with live-action, social drama with dystopian fantasy). And especially cinema and other arts, a combination perfectly mirrored in the works of Romanian artist