Movie

The 9th Transilvania International Film Festival, briefly known as TIFF, to be held between the 28th of May and 6th of July 2010 in Cluj, Romania, implies as usual a serious dose of cosmopolitism and a necessary touch of irony. The extensive lisTraditionally, each year its promotional video pastiches, mocks or refers to a very well-known film or concept related to film; this year, the victim is the George Lucas franchise Star Wars; in a short clip by Radu Munteanu...

The White Ribbon begins with a promise. The voice of an old man, not really sure about the story he is about to tell (“I don't know if the story that I want to tell you, reflects the truth in every detail”, he says), the voice that we will later see it belongs to one of the characters of the story, teacher in a German village before the First World War...

Kapitalism – Our Improved Formula, Alexandru Solomon’s latest documentary, is so cautious with the very concept he uses for the title (capitalism, this time without the “k”), that it could be easily misunderstood by all sides involved: the journalists will think Kapitalism is too „soft”, the partisans of capitalism will find it too „harsh” (maybe even one-sided), eventually the leftists will be concerned with it being too neutral, and so on.

When it came to the style of the Romanian film When I Want to Whistle, I Whistle, who recently has been awarded two prestigious prizes at the Berlin Film Festival, film critics almost unanimously agreed about one particular flaw: the shaky camera was endlessly following the main character through the prison, sometimes for no particular reason at all.

The terrible plane crash tragedy that caused the death of today’s Polish leading officials in a terrifying remake in Katyn forest, just as the Polish officers (maybe fathers, grandfathers or acquaintances of the ones who passed away last Saturday) were shot on Stalin’s Orders in April 1940, brought back to public attention the “film-document” of the veteran Andrzej Wajda.

For those who like labels, Paul Greengrass could be just another director who likes to re-enact history, to be a little more precise, recent history, sometimes shortly after the media buzz on the subject is over. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that Greengrass is somehow the new Oliver Stone, even if his 9/11 movie, United 93, ran in theaters next to Stone’s 9/11 movie, World Trade Center, back in 2006

The main quality of Lone Scherfig’s An Education is that it has the right actors when the plot seems to develop into something you’ve already seen. No matter how many Lolitas you’ve already seen (apparently) being seduced by older men, Carey Mulligan is simply worth watching as another impersonation of the type.

If Florin Şerban’s astonishing first feature film took by surprise the critics at the Berlin Film Festival this year, creating serious expectations for the Romanian film critics and for the Romanian public, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle eventually proved to be worthy of both his fame and the two prizes he received.

First of all, indistinguishable noises, human voices, faint traffic: all the movies Jacques Audiard has made so far begin with a brief sequence of faint noises, before the actual image takes over the screen. The notable exception, Read My Lips (Sur mes lèvres) features a hearing-impaired woman who is connecting her hearing aid while no sound is heard whatsoever.

The town on the Someşul Mic river is preparing to become ahain the international capital of the movie between the 28th of March – the 6th of June when the 9th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival will take place here. According to the tradition this year’s festival will also “spoil” the public with sensational productions, interesting events, an impressive number of important guests, parties and other surprises.