Even though this weekend we celebrate Easter and part of us will leave the city or will be busy with the traditional family dinner and the succeeding discussions, we are sure that moviegoers will want to spend the evening in the cinema or in front of the TV, according to preferences.

For this short holiday, we recommend you 3 films that just started playing in the Bucharest’s cinemas, followed by 3 films that can be watched at home.

What we can see at the cinema this weekend:

Far from Here (director James Pillion / drama), one of the latest productions in which Maria Dinulescu plays Sofie’s role and Jonathan Ahmadi plays the role of Grant. The film is also the debut in feature films of the American director.

The action follows a newlywed couple that wants to start a family and moves from USA to Bucharest. A year later, their relationship reaches a deadlock because of the broken promises and a tragedy forces them to make a decision regarding their future. Caught between the career and the love story that she lives, Sofie has to chose: will she leave together with her husband to start a family or will she stay with her boss (Andi Vasluianu) to take her career to a next level?

In an interview for Romanian Film Development which will be posted at the end of this week, Maria Dinulescu says about Far from Here:

It is not a piece of art, it is obvious that is it done by a beginner, but it is a story in which you could fit.

The movie can be seen at Cinema City Cotroceni on Saturday, April 15, at 11:10 AM and on Sunday, April 16, at 7:00 PM.

Going in style (director Zach Braff / comedy) with Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Joey King.

The Academy Award-winning actors Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin form a memorable team and play the roles of three lifelong friends: Willie, Joe and Al, in a remake of the film with the same name from 1979.  They decide to risk their quiet retired life and their bingo games without flutter for an illegal plan when all their economies are lost because of some banking tricks. Desperate because they can’t pay their bills and support their families, the three of them take extreme measures: they will rob the bank due to which they have lost their money in the first place.

Fun fact: It is the sixth time when Morgan Freeman and Sir Michael Caine work together, one of the past collaborations being the The Dark Knight trilogy.

This weekend the film can be seen at Băneasa Shopping City, Happy Cinema Liberty Mall, Movieplex Cinema Plaza, Cine Globe Titan. The full schedule for the next days and tickets can be found here.

Fuocoammare / Fire at Sea (director Gianfranco Rosi / documentary)

Samuele is 12 years old and lives on an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. He goes to school and loves to hunt with his slingshot. He likes land games even though everything around him talks about the sea and about men, women and children that try to cross the sea to reach his island. The island is not an ordinary one; the island is called Lampedusa and it became the Europe’s symbolic frontier, being crossed for the last 20 years by millions of immigrants looking for freedom.

Fun facts:

– Director Gianfranco Rosi is also the DOP of the film.

– Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi highly appreciated the movie, stating that he would carry with him 27 DVD copies of the film to a session of the European Council. Each one of the copies was given to a head of state or government of the European Union.

The film can be seen at Elvire Popescu Cinema on Saturday, April 15, at 5:30 PM and on Sunday, April 16, at 7:30 PM. The tickets can be found on Eventbook website.

For an evening at home we have two film recommendations that can be seen on HBO 3, to which we added a feature film from our friends at Cinepub.

Youth (director Paolo Sorrentino / drama)

We recommend yet another film in which Michael Caine is the protagonist, this time playing a retired orchestra conductor role (Fred Ballinger) spending his holiday in a hotel from the Alps. The film talks about friendship, relationships between parents and children, life and death, all seen with the sincerest eyes and staged in Sorrentino’s own personal style, helped by DOP Luca Bigazzi. The film follows the efforts of Fred and his friends, a composer on one side and a film director, on the other side, to revive their careers and to interact with people around, while thinking about how long they have left to live. The movie won 16 awards and has 50 nominations including Best European Film, Best European Director (Paolo Sorrentino) and Best European Actor (Michael Caine) at European Film Awards 2015.

The film can be seen on HBO 3 and HBO 3 HD on Sunday, April 16, at 5:25 PM.

Eastern Business (director Igor Cobileanski / comedy)

Eastern Business tells a story about 2 Moldavian friends, Marian (Constantin Pușcașu), a province intellectual, and Petro (Ioan Sapdaru), an opportunist full of ideas. The two friends begin a crazy journey  in order to earn enough money to achieve their dreams: Marian wants to get married to Veronica (Anne Marie Chertic), while Petro wants to start a crane renting service. They decide to become business partners and start working on a plan: to sell a carriage full of horseshoes. The plans don’t work out, but Marian and Petro don’t lose their optimism and try other methods to get rich.

The film can be watched on HBO 3 and HBO 3 HD on Sunday, April 16, 7:30 PM.

Back Home (director Andrei Cohn / comedy)

The screenplay is based on the dramatic text written by actor (and playwright) Mimi Brănescu, a representative figure of the New Romanian Film. Robert is a young writer that goes through a crisis. For the first time since his mother’s death he decides to go back home, in his village. He spends 24 hours in which he gets together, after many years, with his dad, his childhood best friend and his teenage sweetheart. 24 hours in which all these relations are questioned.

In 2016, Ioana Flor won the GOPO prize for Best leading actress for the role in the film Back home.

The film can be watched on Cinepub.

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.