Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest, the festival that has been bringing to Bucharest the most important yearly art-house films along with the most renowned cineastes since 2010, will be taking place again this year between 13th and 22nd of October. The festival will be opening in four locations in Bucharest – Cinema PRO, Elvire Popesco Cinema, Romanian Peasant Museum Cinema and Cinemateca Eforie. Seven other cities will also be hosting the festival, with local editions to be held in: Timișoara, Iași, Cluj, Brașov, Sibiu, Arad and Suceava.

News about the 2017 edition of the already famous festival Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest has been released. The festival brings to our country the most important films of the international cinematography in the last year.

The workshop dedicated to the Romanian actors who want to have an international career will have its second edition throughout the festival. Special guests, meetings with the filmmakers, retrospectives and parties won’t miss either. We wanted to find out more about this year’s edition of the festival so we talked to PR Manager Laura Ducu, who answered all our questions.

What are the highlights of this year’s edition of Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest?

As always, the films are the main attraction of the festival; several awarded films will have their premiere in Romania: The Square (dir. Ruben Östlund) – winner of Palme d’Or Trophy, You were never really here (dir. Lynne Ramsay) – Best Script Award & Best male actor, 120 Battements Par Minute (dir. Robin Campillo) – Grand Prix, The Beguiled (dir. Sofia Coppola) – Best Director.

The 8^th edition honours Béla Tarr and Laurent Cantet through two special sections. Béla Tarr Retrospective includes four of the most important films made by the Hungarian director: Alamanc of Fall (1984), Sátántangó (1994) – the special screening of the seven and a half hour film can be seen at Cinemateca Eforie, Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) and The Turin Horse (2011).

Focus on Laurent Cantet includes L’Emploi du temps (2001, awarded at Venice Film Festival), Entre les murs (2008, winner of Palme d’Or), Retour à Ithaque (2014, presented at Venice Film Festival) and L’Atelier (2017, part of the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes).

The two filmmakers will be present at the special screenings organized in their honour and the audience will have the chance to interact with them.

The festival continues the tradition of the Romanian Film section which was launched last year. The Romanian Autumn previews will be screened every evening at the Romanian Peasant Museum Festival. The schedule will contain the most important Romanian films which will be part of the next year festivals or which were recently premiered.

The festival continues to support actors in their international development. The second edition of the Managing Talents workshop brings to Romania the most renowned casting directors from Europe.

Another novelty is the fact that the festival will also have regional editions in seven cities in Romania: Cluj (October 13 – 15), Brașov (October 13 – 19), Sibiu, special edition in partnership with ASTRA Film Festival (October 16 – 22), Timișoara, Arad, Iași (October 20-22) and Suceava (November 10-12).

2017 also marks the 10th launching anniversary of 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days directed by the festival’s co-producer Cristian Mungiu, the first Romanian feature film which received the Palme d’Or Award.  The official poster of the 2017 edition of Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest is inspired by the film’s poster.  Practically, this film started this entire action. Certainly, we will have other surprises related to this moment.

Definitely, the master classes, special guests, debates and parties are also part of the programme. And let’s not forget about the Golden Day!

What should the audience know about the opening film “The Square”?

They should know that the film won the Grand Trophy at this year’s edition of Cannes Film Festival and that it is a nonconformist comedy which clearly exposes the paradoxes of the contemporary society J This edition of the festival will be opened with the film called The Square directed by Ruben Östlund. The film is distributed in Romania by Independența Film and is screened not only in Bucharest, but also in the rest of the cities where regional editions take place.

Les films de Cannes à Bucarest organizes on October 21st, starting at 11:00 AM, at Cinema Pro the second edition of the Managing Talents event, continuing its mission to support beginner or established actors, regardless the age, in their professional development. Who will be the guests this year?

This year’s edition of Managing Talents will have as special guests six of the most important casting directors from Europe. Frank Moiselle who was nominated three times at Primetime Emmy Awards will be one of them. He worked with famous directors like Jim Sheridan, Joel Schumacher, Gillies MacKinnon and Neil Jordan and for several TV series as Ballykissangel, Tudors, Borgias and Vikings.

From the United Kingdom we will have Vicky Thomson who works for many award-winning TV productions including Broadchurch, Humans, Grantchester, Brief Encounters, The Last Kingdom, Episodes, and Victor Jenkins (Victor Jenkins Casting Ltd.) well-known for the wonderful productions Troy and Alexander.

From France comes Nathalie Cheron who collaborates with one of the most renowned European and American directors such as Luc Besson, Olivier Assayas, Guillaume Gallienne, Frédéric Auburtin, Robert Altman, Norman Jewison, Danny Huston, Des McAnuff and Doug Liman.

Elizaveta Shmakova from Russia is the Casting Director of Studio Slon where she works for Russian and international projects.

The workshop is organized in collaboration with Richard Cook, one of the founders of The Lisa Richards Agency. The agency’s portfolio includes actors as Cillian Murphy, Aidan Turner, Pierce Brosnan, Vlad Ivanov.

Furthermore, during the three parts of the master class, the participants will have the chance to meet with actors Nahuel Perez Biscayar, Dylan Smith, Valentina Lodovini, Vlad Ivanov and directors Radu Muntean and Cristian Mungiu.

Who can register to the Managing Talents workshop?

The workshop from October 21st is addressed to both the established actors, no matter the age, and the young ones. The event’s aim is introducing as many Romanian actors as possible to the worldwide famous Casting directors.

Actors who are interested in the event are invited to make a self-tape video in English, French or Russian using a proposed-text (that can be found on the event’s page) and upload it online. They have to send us the link to this video together with their personal profile from a casting agency. Optionally, they can fill up the online application providing online links to their reel and to film sequences in which they were casted.

The deadline for the applications is October 8^th. All participants will be automatically registered in the databases of all the casting directors invited to Bucharest. And the surprise is the fact that the best 30 applicants will have the chance to meet in private with the casting directors.

The actors that graduated in 2017 can also sing up to the Managing Talents workshop but won’t be eligible for the individual meetings. All the details about the registration process are available online on the festival’s website.

Cinephiles can also participate at this event but the number of available seats is limited, the enrolled actors being a priority. For buying a ticket and finding out more details they have to send an email to welcome@filmedefestival.ro.

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.