The 11th edition of the International Human Rights and Documentary Festival One World Romania takes place between 16 and 25 March in Bucharest. Throughout the 10 days we can watch the newest worldwide documentaries in 8 locations in the center of Bucharest.

As is its yearly custom, in 2018 One World Romania presents the world and reality around us once again, but this time from a historical perspective.

‘Firstly, we are looking into the past so we can better understand how our present is influenced. Moreover, we want to analyze the present so we can learn from the historic successes and failures, to slowly create a better future.’

As you probably already know, One World Romania is the first and single Romanian Film Festival which works based on the concept called High School Students Jury: five high school students, through the selected documentaries and meetings with the filmmakers or specialists from related fields, have the chance to discover themes that are not taught in school. Moreover, their opinion is decisive in choosing the single film which will receive the OWR trophy.

During the 10 days of the festival, the 5 teenagers that are part of the High School Students Jury will watch 10 out of the 70 documentaries presented in the festival; on the last day of the event they will deliberate and announce the winner.

This year’s schedule of the festival is truly complex, also including Romanian documentaries. For this edition there were selected 12 documentaries produced or co-produced in Romania. Five of these will be presented in the already well-known section called ‘Work-in-progress’, and the rest will be part of the following sections: ‘Past-present’, ‘Seeking: Country’, ‘Cultures of protest’, ‘The rules of Law’ and ‘Delicatessen’.

The Romanian documentaries which we recommend you to watch are:

• Licu, a Romanian Story, directed by Ana Dumitrescu. The documentary presents the story of a 92-year-old man who survived all the major historical events of the last century. The film’s national premiere will be at One World Romania.
• Infinite Football, signed by Corneliu Porumboiu, is a documentary about the potential of the future and what we leave behind us for the coming worlds.
• Megaphone, made by Ruxandra Gubernat, Marcel Schreiter and Henry Rammelt; the film highlights a changing country which is becoming increasingly skilled in a culture of protest propelled by the alternative cultural scene.

Because we wanted to find out what documentaries and events we should not miss at the current edition of One World Romania, we decided to ask Alexandra Ivan, PR & Communication Manager of the festival, about them:

In 2018 One World Romania takes place between 16^th and 25^th of March. What are the highlights and the moments we should not miss in the ten days of the festival?

This year we extended the festival to ten days, and it seems harder than ever to choose just some of the highlights and important moments because we have more films, more guests and more extremely interesting additional events. I will try to briefly describe the event in a chronological order J

On Friday at CinemaPRO we will see the first documentary of the 2018 selection – ‘Impreza – The celebration’. The selectors say that this is ‘a must-see film for anybody who after a family dinner has vowed never again to discuss politics at the table’. Who does not recognize this situation?

On Saturday at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, the entire day will be dedicated to the art of activism, with films from the ‘Art in action’ section and special poetry moments prepared by Elena Vlădăreanu, Cosmina Moroșan and Svetlana Cârstean. We will end the day with an Ada Milea concert.

On Sunday, after the projection of ‘In praise of nothing’, the director Boris Mitic will be the host of a master class, which will be very interesting because he is a very unconventional and creative director.

The screenings of the Romanian documentaries that are part of the ‘Romania: work-in-progress’ section will start on Monday. I think that these films should not be missed especially because the filmmakers need the audience’s feedback, so their final products will be as best as they can.

On Thursday, ARCUB will host the new edition of Kinedok, a programme of alternative film distribution in Eastern Europe, coordinated by One World Romania Association for already 4 years. We will watch ‘Nothing like before’ made by Lukas Kokes and Klara Tasovska, the winners of the Jury Prize at One World Romania 2013 for the documentary ‘Fortress’, which is now available on DVD in the Association’s collection.

During the entire festival, we invite you to the BRD Scena9 Residence to see ‘The Polyekran of the Emotional Work’ exhibition, created by Pavel Sterec and Petra Dobruska, with a live soundtrack by Maria Balabaș, and the photography exhibition called ‘Scar’, signed by Cosmin Bumbuț and Elena Stancu. The two of them, together with Andreea Bragă, will host a debate about the domestic violence in Romania on Thursday, March 15^th, at BRD Scena9 Residence, starting at 7:30 PM. This is the last warm-up event of One World Romania 2018.

Besides the documentaries, One World Festival brings every year to the public several additional events like exhibitions, master classes and debates, and the 11^th edition isn’t an exception. Which are the most important events of this year that the public should not miss?

On Sunday we host an event on the topic of audio-visual archives and their recovery in Romania. The event will be attended by Romanian filmmakers, but also by Bill Morrison, Peter Forgacs and Oksana Sarkisova, Stefanie Eckert and Michael Loebenstein.

On Monday we have the opening of the exhibition ‘No Man’s Land’ and a debate about the informal living in Romania, which are organized in collaboration with Pact Foundation and MKBT. Also on Monday, we scheduled a master class with the Japanese filmmaker Kazuo Hara and the producer Sachiko Kobayashi, which will take place at ARCUB and will start at 8:30 PM.

Tuesday includes a very interesting debate about the national education reform called ‘Rică couldn’t say river, rat, Education Reform’, which will take place at BRD Scena9 Residence. We have invited 11 people and organizations who won`t be put in their place and managed to have an impact on education with long time projects or specific actions. They will speak about what drives them and what stands in their way in the shape of fast-paced presentations using 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each. The format is called Pecha-Kucha and it facilitates talking about a topic from multiple points of view.

On Thursday we have a DVD launch event at ARCUB. The DVD is called ‘Documentary Film and Political’ and is part of the ‘Sahia’ collection. We will see 3 films included on the DVD and then we will discuss with Adina Brădeanu, the ‘Sahia’ programme coordinator and co-selector of the festival.

From Friday to Sunday we have the weekend dedicated to the Students: we scheduled the screenings of all the documentaries that are part of the ‘1968: 50 years after’ and ‘Cultures of protest’ sections, and additional debates. ‘Students in action’ will take place on Saturday, March 24^th, at ARCUB, at 12 PM. Karel Kovanda and Monika MacDonagh-Pajerová (leading figures in the film ‘Czech students uprising’ and two leaders of the Czech students in two main years – 1968 and 1989), historian Lavinia Betea and the president of ANOSR Marius Deaconu will attend the event. The discussion will be moderated by Iulia Popovici and Marius Cosmeanu. The second event called ‘1968: East – West’ will take place on Sunday, March 25^th, at 12 PM, in the Atrium of the French Institute. The public will meet the well-known journalist Bernard Guetta, who will share his personal experiences of the year 1968 in Paris and talk about how all of these events have influenced the world we live in today. The discussion will be moderated by Bogdan Ghiu.

And we close every night like a student would, with a party or a concert! 🙂

The 11^th edition of the International Human Rights and Documentary Festival One World Romania takes place between 16^th and 25^th of March 2018. The full schedule can be found on their official website. The tickets can be purchased on Eventbook.

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.