A cultural manager and a group of film enthusiasts face a challenge: what do you do when you have more movie theaters than audience?

It’s a hot late August afternoon in Bucharest. Ioana Dragomirescu, who is in the city for a few days, jokes that she came right when half of the buildings in the city don’t have hot water, and she happens to stay in the unfortunate half. We’re in Point’s courtyard, at the end of a panel discussion on how to build a successful arthouse cinema, organized by Films in Frame. Ioana came to talk about her experience in the past year as the manager of the cinemas in Timișoara and, in general, as someone with a solid background in the local and European film industry. She seems more relaxed than a few weeks ago when we met in her office in Timișoara. She’s on vacation, she’s in the mood for chatting, and for the first time, it seems like she doesn’t have anything urgent to solve.

While sipping lemonade and eating quesadilla at a nearby terrace, we continue the discussion on the topic debated at the roundtable. Ioana reflects on the past year and outlines her plans for the fall. She speaks with enthusiasm about what lies ahead but is also aware that very soon everything will feel like a knot in her stomach.

It’s been a year since Ioana moved from Bucharest to Timișoara to implement an ambitious plan developed by the local administration: with Timișoara being selected as the 2023 European Capital of Culture, five old local cinemas were to be renovated and reopened. A unique and exceptional plan in Romania, thanks to the attention and investments directed towards culture this year, and a completely new challenge for Ioana. Even though construction sites progressed slowly and the openings were delayed, there were some small victories that will positively impact the local community. As for Ioana, she saw what it meant to “work for the state” and understood that it can come with a lot of freedom but also with many replies like “No can do” or “Not possible”. She may not have discovered the recipe for a successful art cinema this year, but she is convinced that it relies primarily on the efforts of a dedicated team.

Ioana tells me about the event they are planning for the celebration of the first renovated old cinema in the city, Victoria, which, in a year since its opening, gathered over 37 thousand spectators and hosted 600 events. In other words, it surpassed their initial expectations. They are also preparing for the October launch of the largest movie theater in the city – and the second of the five planned – Timiș, a hall with almost 500 seats, where there are still many unknowns to be solved before it’s launch-ready. At the same time, there are the other construction sites, and the pressure to move forward and be ready faster is quite high, although it is hard to believe that they will open any of them this year.

“We laid the first brick, and now, with a lot of effort, we’re trying to lay the second. And the fragility of everything we build is still there.”

Ioana knew from the start that it was quite a risky path she was venturing on. The local situation sounded something like this: Timișoara was the only major city in Romania that, for over 10 years, had no functioning art cinema. The former RADEF theaters were either alienated or neglected, and the last ones to close were Studio and Timiș, in the city center. However, the gap in the film offering was exploited in the last decade by the developers of the Iulius Town and Shopping City commercial centers, which house multiplexes operated by Cinema City, with a total of 25 screens and over 4600 seats, figures that place the city second in the country, after Bucharest, in terms of seating capacity. Therefore, the mission to fill another five theaters (adding up to 1200 new seats) not only didn’t seem easy, but the local administration risked creating an inflation of spaces. That in the context of a city whose public has gotten out of the habit of frequenting art cinemas, outside a core of moviegoers.

Why then five cinemas? What is the strategy behind them to make them sustainable? How do you build and attract an audience back to the cinema, post-pandemic, especially when the films you offer are not exactly blockbusters that ensure a more secure income? And what do these new spaces mean for the people in the city?

These are thoughts with which I set out when I went there a few weeks ago: to see what lies beyond these so highly praised investments announced as part of the “cultural capital” plan, how Ioana’s start-up vision aligns with the outdated work in local administration, and how these spaces are received by the community. Above all, I wanted to understand if the “Timișoara model” could be an example of best practices for other cities, for other cinemas in Romania that want to revive.

***

The first thing I noticed when I entered Victoria Cinema in Timișoara was the spacious and welcoming foyer. For a Bucharest resident, who lacks “street cinemas” and often has to make their way to the movie theater through the labyrinths of a mall, this space makes you sigh. Then, there’s the intense purple color that dominates the venue and is part of the place’s identity – in the upholstery of the chairs, in the colors of the posters announcing the weekly schedule, in the elephant mascots (mother and baby) sitting on an armchair, entertaining the young audience. Last but not least, the message at the entrance asking viewers not to consume food during the screening – one of the details that pleased and surprised many.

Victoria Cinema is located on the ground floor of an apartment building in the historic Elisabetin district, just steps away from a small square towered over by St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church. It’s an area surrounded by high schools and the West University, which can be reached in a 20-minute walk from the city center. It is the first theater (194 seats) that has been inaugurated and, like all the others, follows a vision created according to a strategy developed by Ioana and approved by the city.

Initially, Victoria Cinema’s main programming focused on theater, stand-up comedy, and improv shows, and arthouse cinema came second. However, the roles reversed, one reason being the delay in work at the other venues. Victoria has become a cinema with a regular program while retaining its multifunctional character, also hosting other types of events such as concerts, dance and theater performances.

When devising the strategy for their reintegration into the city’s cultural circuit, Ioana was also taken aback by the large number of theaters. But the challenge came more as “Here they are, now what do we do with them?” task.

The venues were taken over from RADEF by the previous administration when, in 2017, through a council decision, the municipality took over the Freidorf, Timiș, Dacia, Victoria, Unirea, Fratelia, and Arta cinemas. Studio Cinema was added to the list through a separate decision of the Local Council. Of all these, projects for renovation were initiated for Freidorf, Timiș, Dacia, Victoria, and Studio.

Dacia, with over 350 seats, is located in a dense, working-class neighborhood, surrounded by many schools. Thus, the program of the theater will focus on educational purposes, featuring film screenings for students, documentaries, and TedTalks-like conferences. Although the renovation work was nearly finished, it came to a halt due to issues with the constructor. Renovation costs are estimated at 10.7 million lei.

Freidorf, with 80 places, is situated in a peripheral neighborhood resided by vulnerable communities with low to no access to cultural programs. The plan is for it to become a cultural center, providing social assistance, family counseling, medical services, and also serving as a space for educational screenings. Estimated renovation costs: 2.8 million lei.

Timiș is in the heart of the city, on the ground floor of an apartment building in the civic center of Timișoara, between a bakery and a print shop, with the imposing Metropolitan Cathedral to its right. It is the cinema with the highest capacity – almost 500 seats, including another room with a capacity of 100 seats for conferences and rehearsals. Timiș required an investment of 19.1 million lei (big part of it was allocated to the technical equipment) and has the vibe of a mall cinema: brightly colored walls, glitter on the floor, and a huge panel displaying the schedule. The venue is to host mainly concerts, big shows, and films with more audience appeal. The launch is planned for the weekend of October 6-8, and one of the films to be screened there will be Freedom by Tudor Giurgiu.

Studio is in a building around the corner from Timiș. A historic building designed as the city’s showcase cinema, which will function as a cinematheque. A multifunctional space as well: in addition to the two halls (one with almost 200 seats, the other with 60), it has a rooftop (80 seats) that will also host screenings and a loft designed as a working space for industry professionals and an editing-sound room. In early August, workers were still dealing with plumbing and electrical wiring and finishes, and the works seemed far from being completed – the main hall was just a steep slope, and the loft was an open-ceiling space.

The recent history of this place started from a beautiful dream: local authorities, the main local film associations (Marele Ecran, Pelicula Culturală, Docuart), and a private investor, Groupama, which offered 150,000 euros for the architectural services, all sat at the same table. Not only were the design and architectural plans more complex than the initial layout – the entire structure was completely rethought, keeping only the Art Deco-style facade – but it also led to tense discussions among those involved from the beginning in the project, dissatisfied that it remained in the hands of the municipality. The costs for consolidating and renovating Studio Cinema amount to at least 3 million euros, with hopes that it will be ready in the spring of next year.

While the renovation and construction site management are in the hands of the City Hall, the reintroduction of the theaters into the city’s social and cultural circuit is the responsibility of the Timișoara City Projects Center, an institution created in 2021 on the occasion of TM2023 and under the authority of the Local Council. A division of the Center is dedicated to cinemas, coordinated by Ioana and her team.

Upon invitation by the local authorities, Ioana wrote the strategy for these cinemas, and she says she conceived it as a “constellation”, where they complement each other and propose an alternative to the mall offer. Given that there were several cinemas that needed an identity, the best solution was to specialize them. “In such situations, you either specialize them or rely on their geographical proximity, so that a cinema with the same program could serve a neighborhood,” says Ioana. But since neighborhoods in Timișoara are fairly close to one another, she believes the second option wouldn’t have worked and would have ended up competing against each other.

Her proposal was well received and approved. One more step was needed, which Ioana took. She left her job of almost four years as the manager of Elvire Popesco Cinema in Bucharest, many friends, and a relationship that was to continue long-distance, and started over in a city she had left 16 years ago.

***

Moving from one place to another seems to be part of Ioana’s DNA.

Ioana, 35, spent her childhood in Reșița until high school when she moved with her family to Timișoara, the “Western” city that offered more prospects for her and her brother. In her final year of high school, while she was preparing for the language certificate exam at the French Institute, she attended a presentation by a representative from Sciences Po University in Paris about their study program – and something clicked. The temptation to go abroad was there, but until then, she had not imagined she could pursue a full bachelor’s program. The faculty had a major in political science, which would have pointed Joan towards a career in administration or even politics. She got in.

At the time, she didn’t have much connection with cinema, apart from one summer when she volunteered at Transilvania IFF – and loved the atmosphere – and the discussions with her brother who was a student at Directing. Something began to change when she spent a year in Amsterdam on an Erasmus program. She was looking to volunteer and had two eye-opening experiences. The first was at the small Cavia Cinema, which she remembers as “a bohemian place” but ran somewhat chaotically for her organized style, and the second was at IDFA, the world’s largest documentary festival, which she says left a big impact on her. “It seemed like a well-functioning machine, and it was impressive to see theaters full of people who would take time off from work to come and watch documentaries.” Suddenly it dawned on her that this wasn’t just a weekend voluntary activity but could be a full-time job, a career.

When she returned to Paris for her master’s, she already knew that she would veer towards the cultural field. She pursued a master’s in Communication and Marketing – and the chance to do it in France, a country where the film industry is important, allowed her to choose several electives dedicated to film marketing and products.

She also underwent several internships in different institutions – for which she moved again, to Berlin and Brussels – until she got her first job in the field: a six-month internship, at the end of her studies, at the distribution company Le Pacte. Ioana worked in the International Sales department, where she had to sell films from the company’s catalog to as many distributors as possible and submit them to prestigious film festivals.

She then worked for a year and a half at Europa Cinemas, where she was responsible for the Northern Europe area (analyzing the programming files of member countries applying for grants). The most impactful experience she had there was attending workshops at major festivals, where dozens of cinema managers from all over Europe come together and exchange impressions about their work. “That’s where I first came into contact with them, with the challenges they encounter, with everything that goes into running a cinema,” says Ioana. It was important for her to witness the examples of others, which would later guide her, and to feel that there was an organization “like a safety net” from which she could draw inspiration. Now she is on the other side of the fence: she holds training sessions for managers where she shares her experiences.

I like to say that I took over Elvire like a train car that was running, and I made it run a bit better. The challenge with the job in Timișoara was literally pushing a train on the tracks, making it start, getting it to move.

Ioana Dragomirescu

After Europa Cinemas, Ioana returned for three and a half years to Le Pacte, this time as a festival manager. There, she was in charge of coordinating the films’ festival run, as well as tours for renowned artists within the company. She learned how to manage budgets efficiently and maximize the company’s revenues, lessons she says have stayed with her to this day. She always plans a release or event not only in terms of looking good but also whether people will come to that film and if it will generate revenue.

Then she returned to Romania, to work at Elvire Popesco Cinema, an experience that overlapped with the complicated years of the pandemic. Nevertheless, it was a prolific period despite a situation that disrupted cinema-going, where Ioana tested the role of manager, organized festivals, programmed films, and established connections with local and foreign distributors.

What Elvire and her current experience in Timișoara have in common – and it’s different from everything she’s done before – is the direct contact she has with the audience. “I have more leeway. I can change things on the go, see how something performs, feel and measure things differently because I get feedback from people,” says Ioana.

But the transition between them felt like night and day.

“I like to say that I took over Elvire like a train car that was running, and I made it run a bit better. The challenge with the job in Timișoara was literally pushing a train on the tracks, making it start, getting it to move.”

The change seems to have come at the right time, however. In all her experiences, there is a pattern, an impulse that drives her towards new things when she feels she has given all she has to give. “When I feel that there’s no more room to grow in my work, or that I have nothing new to offer to that place, I start looking for the exit,” she says.

And this was something she hadn’t done before, which she found extra motivating. The opportunity to build something from scratch, where she could imprint her vision, give it an identity and direction, appealed to her. She sought out the excitement around the big event of “Timișoara 2023 European Capital of Culture” and the chance to work in an administration that had shown interest in investing in these cinemas. It seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – to devise and build the ecosystem of multiple cultural venues, to push the limits and status quo of a community a bit. And she wanted to try it in a place that meant “home” once.

***

It all started with renting a place. It had to be close to Victoria Cinema. A typical workday would most often mean going to the office and ending in the evening at the cinema, with Q&A sessions that would last until late at night.

Her office is located in the Projects Center, which is situated in the middle of the city, between Libertății Square and Unirii Square (the entire center of Timișoara is surrounded by small squares and streets that communicate with each other, giving the impression of a Viennese city). When not taking the tram, Ioana leaves behind the neighborhood of old houses where she lives, crosses the bridge over Bega, now more lively with terraces and people than she remembered. She then walks up to Victoriei Square, filled with mash-ups announcing cultural events, and continues on the famous pedestrian street known for its colorful umbrellas hanging in the sky, bustling with tourists and terraces. And there she is.

The recently renovated building has open-space offices that give the feeling of being in a startup rather than a public institution. Ioana’s office is in the attic, her desk scattered with colorful stickers, folders, and chocolate, which she shares with Nicoleta and Teodora, her colleagues.

Ioana was in contact with many local cinephiles, with whom she had formed ties during her years working at Elvire Popesco Cinema. She knew that to set such a plan in motion, she needed a “local” team – people more in touch with the local context and better connected to other associations and institutions in the city, who knew the community and the moviegoers.

She was joined by Nicoleta Ciocov, one of the key people at Ceau Cinema!, the local film festival founded ten years ago, or, as she calls it, “my third child”. Nico, as everyone calls her, was part of the nucleus of associations and cinephiles who, led by Lucian Mircu (from the Marele Ecran Association), signed a manifesto in 2012 announcing their mission to have a cinematheque in the city. At that time, only Timiș Cinema was still open, the last of the 13 movie theaters the city once had. The screenings were done from the middle of the room, from a desk projector placed on a stand. It was so cold in the winter that you could barely stay until the end of the film. Like at Ceau Cinema!, Nico does everything at the Centre: keeps in touch with the local cultural operators, manages film programming, special guests, events, and volunteers.

Also part of the team at the Centre is Teodora Achim, who had known Ioana from a distance when they both worked at the French Institute – herself in Timișoara and Ioana in Bucharest. Teodora worked there for six years in the Communications department. Perhaps it was something from her previous experience as a Romanian and French teacher in Cluj, something from her professional searches, and the anxieties that the pandemic accentuated. Or maybe something from her inclination to help others. Whatever that something was, it prompted her to take a sabbatical year and go to Denmark, where she worked for an NGO dedicated to children with special needs. She says it was an emotionally charged year but one that made her look at the world with more empathy. When she returned to Timișoara, she continued to work with an association that helped refugees from Ukraine integrate into the city. At the Center, Teodora seems to have gathered all these experiences into one job: she seeks to attract young audiences to the cinema, organizes special screenings for vulnerable communities, handles communication, newsletters, and any text trying to convince people to come to the cinema.

This female trio was joined by a cashier, a projectionist (who didn’t last very long), and a team of hard-working volunteers who started hanging around Victoria Cinema.

Their main goal was to develop a new audience and build loyalty. Not just for one theater but for several. And to start by making a state cinema attractive, with niche programming that doesn’t necessarily offer people what they expect but something they may not yet know they would enjoy.

To make that happen, they tried several things.

They entered the theater in the national network of cinemas and set ticket prices. They wanted to accustom the public to the idea that you have to pay for culture, but also to see if and how sustainable their cinema could become – one that screens films that don’t belong in malls.

They were keen to have a continuous program. Week after week, from Wednesday to Sunday, with newly released films, premieres, or “catalog” films, they wanted to give the audience the feeling of novelty and get them used to this constant rhythm. They wanted a lively cinema. Ioana had an ace up her sleeve here, which she used to push things forward more easily. Her contact with all the distributors, the relationship of trust she had built up with them during her years at Elvire Popesco Cinema. This allowed her to quickly start a public program at Victoria and sell tickets a few days after 1 September, when she officially took over.

They also created five special monthly programs to attract different communities. Film After School, a film club for high school students conceived together with the Contrasens Cultural Association. #CineMunte, featuring films for nature and adventure enthusiasts. #Cinemami, specifically designed for mothers who want to come to the cinema with their babies. The TIFF Cinematheque, showing festival films that are not locally distributed. Finally, the Itinerant Cinematheque, which, in partnership with the National Film Archive, offers the public the opportunity to see old Romanian films.

Some worked, others need to be rethought. #Cinemami, for example, was a hit when it was launched and brought nearly a hundred women with their children to the cinema in March, but in the following months, it lost interest. Film After School, although among the team’s favorites, seems the most challenging in making it appeal to a complex audience like teenagers, but they had a bit more success with school children brought in by teachers.

And, the icing on the cake, they’ve organized events. If there’s one thing that has stayed with Ioana from talking to other European managers about how cinemas are rethinking their operating model, it’s the importance of giving the viewer “an experience”. A happening.

They brought special guests to the screenings – Romanian actors and directors. With foreign filmmakers, they held video conferences. They tried to make most of the major festivals in Bucharest happen, in one form or another, in Timișoara as well – on average, this year, they organized at least one film festival per month. They did it out of the belief that festivals are part of the DNA of an arthouse cinema, but also because they represent an opportunity to discover European films that otherwise don’t get distributed in theaters.

***

Like any big city, Timișoara has multiple generations of cinephiles. The nostalgics, for whom these places remind them of their youth, the smell of diesel (i.e. the cleaning solution used at the time), and the many film clubs from the communist era that inspired some to become directors. Then there are the youngsters, who talk about discovering a different kind of experience – from films that invite discussions and are “different” to the sense of belonging they found at Victoria Cinema.

For Daniel Săvescu, 18, a student at the Art High School in Timișoara, Victoria has become “a second home”. The first volunteer of the cinema, Daniel especially loves theater. He only got into films this year because of this place.

He has all the films he’s seen since he’s been a volunteer at Victoria Cinema listed in his phone, divided by month. He will never forget the night when they had the premiere of Close (which he saw five times). They had a video conference with Lukas Dhont and the two child actors, and he had to pass the microphones around the audience, his heart pounding with excitement. Also staying with him are the Q&As, the stories, and the people he discovered beyond the screen, as well as the moment when he convinced a friend to come with him to the cinema for the first time. After the screening, all Daniel heard was, “All day long that’s all I’ve been thinking about. I’ll come again.” It was one of the best days he’s had this year.

Călin Mircu, 60, grew up in the same neighborhood that is home to Victoria Cinema. He saw his first film there with his classmates – Silver Saddle (1978, dir.Lucio Fulci), a spaghetti western starring Giuliano Gemma. He had skipped his practical training class in fine mechanics. He remembered this a few months ago when he went to a film about Giuliano’s daughter screening at one of the festivals held at Victoria Cinema. For Călin Mircu, who is a regular at the cinema together with his wife, it is reassuring to know that he can look forward to the weekend with the certainty that there will be at least one film worth seeing. Even if there are films with only 15-20 spectators in the room. “It’s hard to be optimistic because we generally meet the same people. It seems to be a niche and I don’t know if we can expect a bigger audience,” thinks Mr. Mircu. Still, there’s one positive thing. Or, rather, hopeful. “The fact that there is a team in charge of the smooth running of the cinema gives us the certainty of permanence.”

Petruț Jugănaru, 44, remembers the clinic that used to be in Victoria Cinema’s place before it was renovated. He once went there for blood tests. Petruț is the volunteer the team often relies on, “the jack-of-all-trades”. He’s there to scan tickets, tighten the screws on seats that have started to creak, the first to jump in when a problem arises. He doesn’t feel like he’s doing much. He’s been volunteering for all sorts of causes since he was a kid, and a space like Victoria, where he’s met people he likes to spend time with and seen films that he feels have opened his mind, is something he hopes will have a long life in Timișoara. “We don’t do anything. We get more than we give,” he confessed. Petruț is the biggest supporter of the #CineMunte program, and the film that touched him the most and which he tells everyone about is Heart of Oak / Le chên). “It’s about an oak tree. And it’s completely wordless.”

Most find a community in Victoria. They spoke openly about it at a meeting held at the pub near the cinema a few days before going on summer vacation. They also shared thoughts on what they like and what they would improve about their work. Among other things, more such meetings, and technical details (lower sound when the theater is emptier), but overall, everything is great.

But things don’t work quite like that. Sometimes it’s less about art and more about paperwork. Tons of paperwork. This is also part of the challenge that comes with working in a public institution. A burden that mostly falls on Ioana’s shoulders.

***

Although it looks like a start-up, the Projects Center is subject to the same bureaucratic procedures as any public administration. In other words, things generally move slowly. A simple example: if one of the light bulbs in the theater breaks today, there is no chance it will be replaced by tomorrow because the purchase procedure has to go through three documents and five people. “The reaction speed of a public administration, be it young and well-intentioned, doesn’t compare to the speed of an association or company,” says Ioana.

“This mountain of paperwork wouldn’t exist if we were working in the private sector. On the other hand, if we were, we wouldn’t benefit from public funding,” says Ioana.

Ideally, a cinema should operate as an independent entity. The best example is Victoria Cinema in Cluj, which is owned by the municipality but managed by an association that covers its running costs. Ioana believes that this solution was not feasible for Timișoara, at least not now. “I can’t imagine who would take on such a large investment at this moment when we are just at the beginning. Especially since, for now, we want to have an overview of all the theaters. The risk, if left separate, would be for them to end up competing with each other by offering the same content – something we don’t want.”

The model they found was to operate within the limits of the administration, with the hope that they would be able to reduce waiting times as much as possible.

In retrospect, Ioana thinks that perhaps she was more optimistic than she should have been.

After a year, the results at Victoria look good; it is a local success. One that is reflected not only in figures, which give an objective measure, but also in the fact that they were able to maintain a continuous film program. Those involved feel, from the received feedback, that the place has built a loyal audience. At present, the running costs can be covered entirely from ticket sales (except for the employees’ salaries).

However, the macro project is still in its infancy. “I’m still on the mountain slope, on a small plateau, catching my breath with Victoria, and the next peak is right on the horizon,” says Ioana.

Other wins for Ioana this year include finding openness among colleagues and legal solutions to situations that initially seemed like a sentence: “It’s not possible. It can’t be done.” The struggles could be for anything – from managing to sell tickets online, despite initially facing the argument that the money had to reach the Treasury in cash every day, to purchasing and installing an air conditioner in record time in the screening room, in the summer, during the Ceau Cinema! festival, when it was 35 degrees Celsius in the projection booth. Another hurdle they faced is somewhat amusing: they wanted to change one of the windows next to the projection booth so that it could open, but they haven’t gotten approval yet because the law operates on old principles when projections were done on film, and there was a risk of fire.

Ioana understands that these obstacles do not stem from ill will but from the fact that, after many years without cinemas in the city, which aim to be multifunctional and dynamic spaces, people are being asked for solutions to problems they haven’t faced before.

“You always have to find a higher power,” says Ioana. “Sometimes you can get things moving through ambition and the desire to do something cool together, but that won’t work for everyone. Other times, you succeed in your endeavor showing that it is possible because it has been done elsewhere. Or you make sure you have support from a higher authority: the mayor said it must be done.”

Then there are the obstacles that come from above. The always-changing laws make the field constantly unstable, and you feel like you have to constantly adapt. It happened in the spring when hiring in the public sector was suspended. They had positions lined up and job openings, but they couldn’t do anything, and their workload increased. “Now, we cannot hire two people for the same position – another cashier, for example. With the reopening of the new cinema, we need to expand our teams, but under the new law, that seems impossible.” And growing their team, says Ioana, is a necessary condition to carry out their mission of managing all the spaces.

Finding and hiring a projectionist was the hardest part. A risk Ioana expected, given that there hadn’t been art cinemas in the city for years, but she never imagined she would be looking for someone for more than half a year (she filled the need by turning to theater projectionists). Only recently have the planets aligned – Maria, a former colleague from Elvire Popesco, who has a film degree but zero experience as a projectionist, needed a change of scenery, so she applied for the job and will move to Timișoara in the fall.

An important lesson Ioana takes with her from this year is that you need a team that operates by different rules than those of the public system. And she was lucky. “Finding people who are passionate and interested in building something and are willing to work more than 9 to 5.” The second lesson is about how you manage conflict when these two worlds meet. “Trying to bring in a foreign body that operates by different rules into a behemoth that is the public administration can lead to frustration.” The important thing, she believes, is to establish a discussion partner, not an enemy. Otherwise, the nucleus you brought in will tire, burn out, and eventually give up.

In the future, anything can happen. Perhaps the funding of the theaters and the importance given to them now will no longer be on the list of priorities – that depends on the political agenda of each mayor and council. There is also the possibility of becoming an annex to the city hall, and the place you dreamed of as a haven for cinephiles ends up being used for speeches and political meetings.

Ioana hopes that, regardless of how the political landscape changes, once you’ve built a project that people embrace, it won’t be so easy to make it disappear. This is also part of the journey: creating something great enough that people grow attached to and protect in case there are threats to its existence.

It’s a year that Ioana feels has been testing her patience a lot, but also one where she’s met strangers smiling at her on the street. A year in which she learned how to interact with the builder, with maintenance, but also with the more difficult-to-approach people upstairs. It’s a year in which she found herself fixing the projector at night, via an assisted video conference. Somehow, she’s handled it all. “You do what you need to do to keep it going,” she says. A year in which, professionally, Timișoara has been a very offering playground that she doesn’t think she would find elsewhere in the country right now, but which proved to be quite challenging and at who knows what personal cost. She has yet to discover that.

This journalistic material was made possible through an Energie! Creative grants, awarded by the Municipality of Timișoara, through the Projects Center, within the Power Station component of the national cultural program “Timișoara – European Capital of Culture in 2023”. The material does not necessarily represent the position of the Projects Center of the Municipality of Timișoara, and it is not responsible for its content or the way it can be used.

Anca Vancu

Journalist. She worked for ten years at Adevărul and DoR as a reporter and for a while in communication. At Films in Frame, she coordinates the whole team with Laure, while also editing some of the articles about the film industry, trying to always find interesting angles to tell a story.