This month’s recommendations include festival films and a new Romanian premiere in cinemas. As usual, the films that can be seen at home are not missing and we can’t skip the new season of Umbre, right?

1. The Anniversary (dir. Dan Chișu, drama). The seventh feature film signed by Dan Chișu will have its premiere in November. It is the last film of Mircea Albulescu and it has a special cast including Răzvan Vasilescu, Marian Râlea, Coca Bloos, Lucian Ifrim, among others. The family members and former colleagues of Radu Maligan attend his 94^th-anniversary party. Everything gets complicated when half of the guests try to convince Radu to confess his sins to a priest, while the others think that no one should be forced to do something against their will.

‘I would say that I wanted to make a film about loneliness. The loneliness related to others – family, friends, colleagues, but also related to God. We are surrounded by people most of our life. This is what we want. But we search continuously for something new, for something else. I think that there are a few cases (so I don’t say that there aren’t at all) in which the human stops looking for something in the person next to him. My characters are just in this situation. The faith of many of them isn’t very clear or cast in stone. It is rather an experiment.’ – Dan Chișu

The film will be screened as a premiere on Saturday and Sunday, starting 5PM, at Cinema Union.

2. All These Sleepless Nights (dir. Michal Marczak; documentary, drama). The film’s premiere was at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival where Marczak won the Director Award in the World Cinema – Documentary category. ‘All These Sleepless Nights’ presents the city of Warsaw in 2015 through parks, apartments, public transport and clubs. It’s a depressing place which no longer seems so gloomy thanks to Marczak’s vision and to a sublime soundtrack based on electronic music, which make things look and sound awesome.

The film will be screened at the KINOdiseea International Film Festival on Friday, November 10th, starting at 8:30 PM, at Eforie Cinema. The tickets can be purchased here.

3. Le Redoutable/Redoubtable (dir. Michel Hazanavicius; biography). Paris, 1967. Jean-Luc Godard (played by Louis Garrel) is shooting La Chinoise together with the woman he loves, Anna Wiazemsky, who is 20 years younger than him. They are happy, in love, seductive and they get married. But the reactions to the film trigger a profound self-examination in Jean-Luc. The events of May 1968 amplify this process and the crisis that shocks the director will deeply transform him. ‘Le Redoutable’ was nominated for 2017 Cannes Film Festival – Palme d’Or Prize.

The film is part of the Panorama section in the French Film Festival, and can be seen on Saturday, November 11, 2:00 PM, at Elvire Popescu Cinema. Tickets can be found here.â

For those who don’t want to spend their weekend in a film theatre, we recommend:

1. T2 Trainspotting (dir. Danny Boyle, drama). 20 years after the first Trainspotting (1996) the Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle reunites with the original film’s cast from 1996. John Hodge returns as a screenwriter and is inspired by Irvine Welsh’s novels – Porno and Trainspotting. Much has changed but just as much remains the same. Mark Renton (played by Ewan McGregor) returns to the only place he can ever call ‘home’. They are waiting for him: Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie.

It was about time to have some fun facts:

• Terminator 2, James Cameron’s famous movie is best known as T2. The cast later explained that the title was the one they thought the characters in the movie would have chosen, just so they could annoy Cameron. The final name remained T2 Trainspotting.
• Robert Carlyle kept away from his family while filming in Glasgow because he became so much like Begbie.
• Although Irvine Welsh wrote a follow-up to his novel Trainspotting in 2002, called Porno, this sequel is actually only very loosely based on Porno. It is mostly an original story which includes some unused parts of the Trainspotting novel, and some elements from Porno.

The film will be on TV on Sunday, November 12th, at 8:00 PM on HBO and HBO HD.

2. Manchester by the sea (dir. Kenneth Lonergan, drama). Lee Chandler is forced to return home to take care of his nephew after his brother Joe dies. During the film, Lee remembers the reasons that made him leave Manchester and get away from his past. For his role in Manchester by the sea, Casey Affleck won three prizes in 2017: the Academy Award, the Golden Globe and the BAFTA Prize for Best male in a leading role. Moreover, the film received the Academy Award and the BAFTA Prize for Best original screenplay.

Fun facts:

• Kevin Grondin, who plays the funeral director, is also one in real life.
• Despite being featured on the poster, Michelle Williams appears in the film for less than twelve minutes (less than 10% of the film’s runtime).
• Surprising everyone on set, Casey Affleck unexpectedly cried during the morgue scene. The script didn’t mention this gesture, but Lonergan decided to keep the scene.
• Manchester-by-the-Sea is a real town on the north shore of Massachusetts.
• The film was shot in 32 days.

The film can be seen on Sunday, November 12th, starting at 9:00 PM on CineMAX and CineMAX HD.

3. Scarred hearts (dir. Radu Jude, drama). The film won four GOPO prizes in 2017 (Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design and Best Hair and Make-up) and was nominated in seven more categories. It is set in 1937 and tells the story of Emanuel, a young man in his early 20s, who spends his days in a sanatorium on the Black Sea coast, suffering from bone tuberculosis. Scarred Hearts is inspired by a novel written by M. Blecher.

The film will be on TV on Sunday, November 12th, at 11:05 PM on HBO and HBO HD.

Bonus: We couldn’t finish the article and say nothing about the long-awaited new season of Umbre, right? We will see a lot of new characters who are ready to do whatever it takes to reach their goals. The new season will have the official premiere on Sunday, November 12^th, both in Romania and other 16 countries from Europe, where HBO is present.

And if we talk about series, probably you already found out about the new season of Stranger Things. We recommend binge-watching all the way!

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.