The main documentary films can be seen at fARAD International Documentary Film Festival and their creators are invited to step in front of the audience and talk about them.

Between October 3rd – 7th, we recommend to film enthusiasts to turn their attention to Arad, more precisely to Arta Cinema in Arad, where fARAD International Documentary Film Festival will take place. This year’s theme is Body / Soul and it opens with the long-awaited film “Touch Me Not”, directed by Adina Pintilie, an essay about intimacy, openness one to another, love and acceptance.

This year’s films, “apparently dedicated to some superficial scandalous subjects, […] are actually structured around some universal themes and, in fact, familiar up to compassion,” as Mona Nicoară, the artistic director of fARAD, describes them, and some of them are:

Everything’s Better than a Hooker (d. Ovidie) – a movie about puritanism, abuse of power and human hypocrisy.

Ask the Sexpert (d. Vaishali Sinha) – because sexual education is not popular in India, a gynecologist turns a column of a newspaper well-known in Mumbai into a place where all unspoken questions so far find their answers.

Dream Boat (d. Tristan Ferland Milewski) – a place where people finally find freedom, are far away from restrictions and family prejudice, but a place where also their stories and personal problems can be heard.

Besides films, at fARAD you will have the chance to listen to and to ask questions to special guests such as Vaishali Sinha, the director of Ask the Sexpert, Bianca Oana, the producer of Touch Me Not, and Steven Lake, the producer of Roll Red Roll, a film about consent, high school students and beliefs such as “boys will be boys.”
On Sunday, October 7th, there will be the archive screening of the documentary Love Meetings, by Paolo Pasolini. Also, during the festival, children will have their own special screenings, as well as a screening accessible to visually impaired people.

In addition, as a preview of fARAD, there will be a debate on the evolution of artistic practices in Romania. Corina Şuteu, Laurenţiu Damian, Călin Man, Mircea Mihăieş and Mona Nicoară will discuss together the “100 years of arts in Romania”, how they have evolved, how they have transformed and how the Romanian arts have become international. The discussion will be followed by the screening of Licu, a Romanian story, a documentary on the life of a 92-year-old who lived history and present, becoming, unnecessarily, a representative model of our country.

The special events will take place in cinemas in Arad, Grădişte şi Gai and the entrance is free.

fARAD is a film festival that appeared in 2014 on the initiative of Corina Şuteu and FilmETC, in collaboration with the Cultural Center of Arad.
Tickets and passes can be purchased from Arta Cinema. Students, children, and pensioners benefit from a discount. More about the programme can be found here.

Melissa Antonescu

Writer, photographer and videographer. For Films in Frame she writes news about the latest happenings in the film world and brings to the readers' attention the productions that can be seen at the cinema. When she's not writing articles, she's photographing people in a small studio or searching for new cake recipes.