Spotlight: Romania, the first Romanian film festival in the Netherlands will take place this year between November 27th and December 1st. Spotlight: Romania is a project of the Eastwards Foundation, a foundation that aims to promote the Eastern European culture in the Netherlands.

The theme of this year’s festival is Film & Identity. That means films with powerful subjects, representative of the contemporary period such as ethnic identity, gender and how people are viewed in society according to who they are, but it also means customs and traditions, and Spotlight: Romania brings to the Nordic countries just a glimpse of a well-known Romanian custom: the great, welcoming meals, filled with traditional food.

Thus, there will be three events where the participants will enjoy traditional Romanian food, the first one being the opening event, where the film Alone at My Wedding (dir. Marta Bergman) will be screened and, moreover, the audience will have the chance to eat sarmale and polenta.

A special event is Today, around three decades of freedom later, where there will be a screening of The Paper Will Be Blue (dir. Radu Munteanu) and, afterwards, a discussion between guests Alina Lupu, artist and writer, and Alexandru Baciu, screenwriter and film director. The discussion will focus on post-communist Romania and what it looks like 30 years after the fall of communism.

Spotlight: Romania presents a selection of some of the most appreciated Romanian films of the past year, such as:

Caisă (dir. Alexandru Mavrodineanu) – A documentary film that follows the relationship between boxing coach Dobre and his protégé, Caisă; the screening will be followed by a Q&A with the team.

Monsters. (dir. Marius Olteanu) – presents a day in the life of two married young people, whose family, society, friends seem to love together, but despise separately. Because of their needs, their beliefs, their life options, their inner monsters; the screening will be followed by a Q&A with the team.

Lemonade (dir. Ioana Uricaru) – Married to an American, Mara moves to the United States with her 9-year-old son, Dragoș, where she has to adapt and overcome legal and cultural barriers.

Several Conversations about a Very Tall Girl (dir. Bogdan Theodor Olteanu) – An ex-lover in common, a photo album, some online conversations, a coffee together, a visit. Two girls are putting together the beginning of a love affair. But as they grow closer, they need to face the things that pull them apart.

The Distance Between Me and Me (dir. Dana Bunescu, Mona Nicoara) – the documentary that explores the life and career of Nina Cassian, poet, journalist and translator.

Timebox (dir. Nora Agapi) – the director listens to her father, professor Ioan-Matei Agapi, filmmaker and owner of a collection of films documenting 50 years of Romanian history, reminiscing about old times;

The festival also includes a series of workshops for children, including: Animation film: what is there to see? and Animation film: what is there to hear? which explore stop-motion animation, respectively the sound in the animation film; Make a book trailer: Stories about cats or The documentary class with Alexandru Mavrodineanu, where he will talk to the participants about the difference between fiction and documentary, about the process of making a documentary film and the role of the director.

Spotlight: Romania film festival will take place in The Hague between November 27th and December 1st, 2019. For the complete program and more details about the special events, please visit the Eastwards website and Facebook page.

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.