Anonimul International Independent Film Festival starts today with its 15th edition. Here are some hand-picked recommendations for unmissable movies from this year’s festival’s program.

The 2019 edition of Anonimul International Independent Film Festival opens with The Dead Don’t Die. Jim Jarmusch turns his attention to horror with this film, adapting it, of course, to his well-known style. When the zombies start to rise from the graves, the horror is replaced by the characters’ extreme deadpan, and the zombies cause either horror or a black humor, difficult to resist to.

Romanian films include La Gomera, by Corneliu Porumboiu. An action movie, which will have its official premiere in September and has already managed to receive 5 international nominations, including for Palme d’Or at Cannes. Peter Bradshaw says in The Guardian about La Gomera: “Porumboiu gives us a knotty, twisty, nifty plot that’s quite involved but hangs together well, and there’s an amusing juxtaposition of gloomy, rainy Bucharest and the sunny terrain of La Gomera. […] An elegant and stylishly crafted piece of entertainment.  ”

Another Romanian film that is a must-see in the festival is Alice T., directed by Radu Munteanu (The paper will be blue). Alice Tarpan is 16 years old and her life is divided between the problems at school, the fact that she got pregnant, but she doesn’t know for sure who the father is, and, the worst of all, that her adoptive mother knows about all these things. The conflict between parents and teenagers reaches a peak here, the strong personalities of the mother and the girl lead to anger bursts and scoldings. Like any mother, though, Alice’s mother will snap at anyone who has something to say against her daughter. But Alice T. talks not only about the conflicts between generations, but also about vulnerability and the courage to expose your flaws in front of the other.

Monsters (dir. Marius Olteanu) presents a different kind of family plot, between Dana and Arthur, a married couple that society, family, friends seem to love together, but despise separately. Over the course of 24 hours, the film takes us through a series of intense moments in their lives which will lead to a life-changing decision.

The Romanian short film section includes:

The bed of Procrustes (dir. Andrian Împărățel), which recently won The Best Fiction Film Award at Filmul de Piatra, focuses on the interaction between two old acquaintances, Dan and Stefan. Beginning as though Dan seems to run away from his responsibilities, the whole thing turns into something more intense.

Paul Muresan returns with a new surprising animation, Ceva, which talks about fears and what happens to them when we try to avoid them.

In the international short film competition we find films such as:

The Beast (dir. Filippo Meneghetti), where an old and almost blind shepherd must convince the villagers to help him recover his nephew from a forest that is believed to be haunted.

The Summer and All the Rest (dir. Sven Bresser) tells the story of Marc Antoine and Mickael, who need to decide their plans for the future, but Marc Antoine is still uncertain about his decisions.

Romina Banu

Photographer and editor; she co-founded Dissolved Magazine together with Melissa. For Films in Frame she gathers film and TV series recommendations for lazy weekends and she writes about interesting projects from the film industry. Other than that, she likes traveling, chilling with her cats and sleeping.