The 11th edition of NexT Film Festival is a summer edition and takes place between 22 and 26 of June, bringing new sections, debates on current themes and open air projections.

This year’s edition of NexT International Film Festival (22 – 26 June), an event focused on film directing and sound design, aims to transform the cinema into a meeting place, a context in which the differences between us are celebrated and embraced. The films included in the festival’s selection aim to be, above all, an occasion to reflect and to discuss.

First of all, we’re announcing that we have a giveaway for two lucky film fans. We’re giving away two invitations to the festival on our Facebook Page! All you have to do is subscribe to our newsletter using this link and share the contest post using the #ADFRxNexT hashtag. The winners will be chosen by random.org and will be announced on Thursday, June 22!

There are ten Romanian productions divided in two parts in this year’s national competition: Ana is Coming Home (dir: Emilian Floareș), Two Nights in April (dir: Andrei Inizian), The White Box (dir: Mihai Păcurar), November (dir: Ion Ioachim Stroe), Sex, Pipe and Omlette (dir: Ana-Maria Comănescu), First Night (dir: Andrei Tănase), Man on the Moon (dir: Mihnea Aliciu), All Rivers Run to the Sea (dir: Alexandru Badea), Humans in Frame (dir: Tudor Botezatu), Forevers (dir: Raia Al Souliman). The films can be seen at Peasant Museum Cinema – Horia Bernea Studio on June 23, at 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM.

We are also interested in the off-competition sections, so we recommend you our favourite films:

PARABLES OF TODAY

Two already well-known sections return to this year’s edition, LBGT and NexT Is Feminist. But the novelty element is represented by the Parables of Today section, which includes political short films. The socio-political issues of the world today are an invitation to profound reflection on how we may understand terms such as inhabitant and migrant, coloniser and colonised, refugee and immigrant, shelter and home. From Parables of Today programme we recommend you three films which can be seen on June 25, starting at 8:00 PM at Elvire Popesco Cinema:

• The medium-length film Illinois Parables, the film which also gave the title of the section, is an experimental documentary which meditates on how people decide on ruling the earth.
• Home is a fictional story of a white family which flees the conflict zone and appeals to the emotions of an Occidental audience, prompting discussions about universal elements found in this type of stories.
• The film-journal Greetings from Aleppo shows a very personal vision of the besieged city of Northern Syria, created from the perspective of an artist who, although he managed to flee the country, decides to return to his hometown.

NEXT GENERATION – OPENING AND CLOSING FILMS

Each year NexT Film Festival wants to discover and support the development of the young filmmakers that just entered the industry, the important voices of their generation and the unique elements that are part of the NexTies community, created in the last eleven years.

So, in this section we will find debut feature films created by filmmakers whose short films are selected in the festival’s program. This year, the two feature films that are part of the NexT Generation section are: Raw, directed by Julia Ducournau (who received in 2011 the “Cristian Nemescu” Price for Best Director for the short film named Junior) that will open this year’s edition, and The human surge, signed by Eduardo Williams (who got in 2012 “Andrei Tocu” Price for best sound design for The Sound of the Star Dazes Me short film) that will be screened in the closing gala.

SHORT MATTERS! TOUR AND ARTHOUSE SHORTS

Once again, this year’s NexT will bring on the Romanian screens short films from well-known names of international cinema through some programmes already established within the festival: European Film Academy: SHORT MATTERS! Tour and Arthouse Shorts. The two sections prove us that the short film is not an insignificant film genre, dedicated only to those filmmakers that prepare for a feature film debut. These films are made by renowned directors who decided to create short films again, so these shorts had to be present in the NexT schedule.

Here are our recommendations:

• The Hunchback, directed by Gabriel Abrantes and Ben Rivers, is a dystopia that displays the aggression of human nature. Using the pretext of a team building organized by a corporation, the protagonist risks becoming a victim of his own colleagues. The film lasts 29 minutes and it can be seen in the Arthouse Shorts section on June 22, at Elvire Popescu Cinema, at 8:00 PM.
• Samuel Lampert approaches humorously the issue of dwelling in The Wall, using as a pretext for such a discussion the moment when the main character decides to hang up a photo on his wall. The Honk Kong’s skyscrapers without personality, which hide dense housing where various anonymities live, become the director’s playground. With an 8 minutes length, the film can be seen in the Short Matters! European Film Academy Nominees on Tour I programme on June 23, at the Romanian Cultural Institute, starting at 6:00 PM. Free access.

NEXT FANTASIA

The Fantasia selection includes five short films that approach dystopia, magical or fantastical worlds, slightly related to Fantasia (Walt Disney, 1940). From this list, some of them are based on imaginary conventions, speaking about a fictional world (The Absence of Eddy Table, Love, Amalimbo), whereas others are forms of magic realism (in Malesh, magic is suggested rather than pointed out, but in Leshy mythological monsters do appear). Visually enchanting, these worlds are far from being idyllic and peaceful: behind that false innocence, there is a dark side that forces its protagonists either to fight it or fully embrace it. The event will take place in the Botanical Garden on June 24, at 6:00 PM. The screening will be accompanied by a special concert of the band TRAVKA.

*For those interested, this year’s NexT edition will also feature a Masterclass on Sound, which takes into consideration the local specific, with one of the guests invited this year, Giles Lamb, sound designer and film music composer.

Using case studies based on his previous work, Giles will present an overview of film composition elements to the audience. Going through post processing, he will cover different approaches in composing, also presenting the relationship between the composer and the director and the related creative challenges.  The last part of the masterclass will be dedicated to a live demonstration of film composition for a Romanian short film.

The Masterclass with Giles Lamb will take place on Friday, June 23, starting at 12:00 PM at CINETic. The entrance is free but registration at events@nextproject.ro until June 20 is required. Limited seats available.

*NexT Live SoundTrack is an event created in partnership with the National University of Music Bucharest and Art Contact Association, featuring live performance of some compositions created especially for this event. A number of young, emerging, master and doctoral composers where invited to compose the music for the animation shorts created by graduate students from the National University of Theatre and Film “I. L. Caragiale”. The students will create music for an orchestra composed of piano, string instruments and percussion, conducted by Cristian Lupeș.

NexT Live SoundTrack takes place on Monday, June 26, at Elvire Popesco Cinema, starting at 12:00 PM, with free entrance.

Tickets and details about the program can be found right here.

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.