BEAST IFF presents NINANIÑA and Cristina Pop-Tiron shortly after its Opening Ceremony
Watch below the performance of the artists NINANIÑA and Cristina Pop-Tiron, which took place shortly after the Festival’s Opening Ceremony.
On the 24th of March, at 8 pm, the 4th edition of BEAST International Film Festival launched with an Opening Ceremony, live on Facebook. At 8:30 pm, it was time for the artistic duo NINANIÑA and Cristina Pop-Tiron to celebrate the beginning of our online edition. The performance was streamed live on Facebook and Youtube.
“DOR: Uma Lembrança” is an audiovisual experience that projects and reflects the feeling of dor/saudade, often found in Romanian folklore. During the performance, the visual elements fuse with the soundscape and open a space of dialogue between traditional and contemporary worldviews, suggesting a synergetic cathartic experience.
You can watch the whole act below:
BEAST IFF kicked off on the 24th of March with an online Opening Ceremony
The fourth edition of BEAST International Film Festival has kicked off through a special live streaming – you can watch it below.
On the 24th of March, at 8 pm, the 4th edition of BEAST International Film Festival launched with an Opening Ceremony, live on Facebook.
The Festival Director, Radu Sticlea, presented the BEAST IFF sections, the highlights of the program, as well as our partners alongside the festival moderator, Rita Marinho.
You can watch the whole inauguration below.
Editorial: Focus Romania, clashing identities
A look into the Focus Romania program through the eyes of Bianca Stanea, the producer of BEAST IFF.
The cinematographic landscape of Romania is ever-changing, multi-layered and internationally recognized. Being the only Latin country from the East, combined with Oriental, Slavic and Balkanic influences, its cultural scene has always been a very eclectic one. As soon as the film world started detaching itself from portrayals of the Communist Era, there was an interesting shift of paradigm that resulted in the above-mentioned eclecticism. Romania is a country of contrasts, of extreme highs and extreme lows, of outsiders, of migrants and most of all a country that is dealing with an untreated (but not incurable) identity crisis. In this intricate web of untold stories and unheard voices, rises the Romanian documentary.
The four selected films for the FOCUS ROMANIA program are very different aesthetically and story-wise, nevertheless, they portray the complex relationships between the protagonists and the landscape. Geography becomes more than a means of spatial measurement, but a reflection of the struggle to belong.
The proposed cinematographic journey breaks the conventional borders of the country and takes us as far as Serbia, Moldova and the USA. In the clash between the East and the West in terms of values, the films present two important attitudes: the reaction to globalization, to freedom as it is understood by the capitalist society and the reaction to the long term effects of the communist past.
Ivana Mladenović (‘Ivana the terrible’) is a Serbian filmmaker that lives in Bucharest. She travels back home to Kladovo, a city on the border between Serbia and Romania. Her two lives are divided by a bridge that crosses the Danube River. In this docu-fiction feature, the filmmaker stages a conflictual return to her family, based on her real-life struggle with health issues that all the other characters seem to believe can be resolved by getting married, settling down and embracing motherhood.
Gică Enache and his family (‘Acasă, My home’) have lived all their lives in a swamp in the middle of Bucharest. As soon as this place is turned into a natural reservation, they are forced to move into an apartment building in a social neighbourhood. They exchange nature for concrete from one day to the other. The director Radu Ciorniciuc manages to create a very tender, yet sometimes rough portrait of the family through his observational documentary, highlighting a bidirectional type of discrimination: the Enache’s are firstly discriminated because they are Roma and secondly because they chose a different kind of lifestyle than the socially accepted conventions.
Nina Cassian (‘The Distance between Me and Me’), a famous Romanian artist, tells her story of the struggle between oppressive regimes. She ends up in a forced exile in New York, eventually, becomes an American citizen and never returns to her country. Based on a large archive of visuals from Nina’s past, she speaks about politics, arts and the image of the woman during the Communist era. As one of the directors, Mona Nicoară says, ‘Nina’s story teaches necessary lessons in a time when creative freedom is once again threatened by the rise of authoritarianism and extremism.’
Dragoș Turea (‘The Soviet Garden’) is a filmmaker from Moldova, an over disputed neighbouring country of Romania. He starts an investigation trying to correlate the increase in cases of cancer, with Soviet agricultural experiments. He travels back and forth in time, through interviews and archive footage, unearthing well-kept secrets. In this Moldova-Romania co-production, the director’s starting point is a very personal one, the strange death of his grandmother. However, he ultimately manages to assert the atrocities of the regime and to deromanticize the Soviet imagery.
After all, these films are not just about travelling through space and time, but about transformative journeys. They showcase strong protagonists who dared to define the system, to speak out, to be different, to expose themselves and the corrupted ones around them. In this melting pot of cultures and influences, Romania becomes a country of diverse ideologies, oscillating between the Western progressive values and the nostalgic feeling towards its past.
Even though there is a constant fight against diversity, the collective efforts of artists are starting to push back against this current of ultranationalism, hate and discrimination. Cinema is finally embracing this identity crisis and generates meaningful artwork from it, becoming an incubator of new ways of storytelling, aesthetics, imagery and powerful topics.
BIANCA STANEA PRODUCER OF BEAST INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
The Mirages of Freedom: already available for national and international audiences, free of charge
Our collaborative project with the Dovzhenko Center, in Ukraine, is available without any fee.
We are pleased to present The Mirages of Freedom, our program in partnership with the Dovzhenko Center, which pays tribute to Ukraine and its experimental short films produced between the 1960s and 1980s.
The program will be available between 24 and 28 March, free of charge, for national and international audiences through the festival’s online library – to get access, just CLICK HERE.
Among its titles are works by the school of Ukrainian Poetic Cinema and its leader Sergei Parajanov; student films created by the future icons of Ukrainian cinema, Leonid Osyka and Roman Balayan; and shorts produced by Kyivnaukfilm Studio’s creative team in the 1980s.
These titles present the beauty and the tragedy of late Soviet informal art, ranging from documentary chronicles of family life to parody comedies, which are marked by absurdity and irony.
VISEGRAD FILM HUB: V4 SCREEN, A FILM JOURNEY
The V4 Screen section aims to promote cinema from the Visegrad Group countries to the Portuguese and international audience.
The V4 Screen program is part of the Visegrad Film Hub, a project co-financed by the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia through the International Visegrad Fund, in collaboration with several cultural Central European institutions.
This year’s program proposes a diverse selection, which can take further the artistic discourse of the project and introduce its audience to new exciting works from the region.
Selected for V4 Screen:
As Far As I Know Nándor Lörincz, Bálint Nagy | Hungary, Romania | 2020 | FIC | 117’ | SUB. PT/EN
I Never Cry Piotr Domalewski | Poland, Ireland | 2020 | FIC | 100’ | SUB. PT/EN
Let There Be Light Marko Škop | Slovakia | 2019 | FIC | 93’ | SUB. PT/EN
SWEAT Magnus von Horn | Poland | 2020 | FIC | 106’ | SUB. PT/EN
School Visit: a partnership with the Faculty of Theatre and Film of Babes-Bolyai University
It is the third time that BEAST IFF has opened space for students’ films from Arts and Film institutions of Central and Eastern Europe.
Within the Focus Country section, that pays homage to Romania in 2021, is the School Visit program.
This year, we have partnered with The Faculty of Theatre and Film of Babes-Bolyai University (Cluj-Napoca), the largest and most respected academic institution in Romania, which will provide the program seven short films of some of its talents.
The central mission of the faculty is to train professionals at the highest level in the performing arts and film, who can practice in an increasingly dynamic and globalized cultural context.
The program will be available between the 24th and 28th March, free of charge, in the festival’s online library.
Selected for School Visit:
Obscure Ervin Szabo | Romania | 2020 | Fic | 17 ‘ | SUB EN
To Grow Under a Wild Cherry Tree Agata Olteanu | Romania | 2020 | Doc | 11 ‘ | SUB EN
Máscara Eszter Szitai | Romania| 2020 | Fic | 5 ‘ | SUB EN
Speranța Sandra Rad | Romania | 2018 | Doc | 18 ‘ | SUB EN
The Emigrants Andra Salaoru | Romania | 2018 | Fic | 16 ‘ | SUB EN
Hellen Claudia Alexandru | Romania | 2019 | Fic | 21 ‘ | SUB EN
Self-care Hunor Pogony | Romania | 2020 | Doc | 15 ‘ | SUB EN
The Mirages of Freedom: experimental work from the Ukrainian SSR
A collaborative project with the National Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Center, in Ukraine.
We present The Mirages of Freedom, our program in partnership with the Dovzhenko Film Center, which pays tribute to Ukraine and its experimental short films produced between the 1960s and 1980s.
Among its titles are works by the school of Ukrainian Poetic Cinema and its leader Sergei Parajanov; student films created by the future icons of Ukrainian cinema, Leonid Osyka and Roman Balayan; and shorts produced by Kyivnaukfilm Studio’s creative team in the 1980s.
These titles present the beauty and the tragedy of late Soviet informal art, ranging from documentary chronicles of family life to parody comedies, which are marked by absurdity and irony.
The program will be available between 24 and 28 March, free of charge, in the festival’s online library.
Selected for The Mirages of Freedom:
A Thief Roman Balayan | Ukrainian SSR | 1969 | Fic. | 11’ | SUB ENG
A Tour To Yugoslavia Andrii Tuziak, Oleh Kachmar | Ukrainian SSR | 1987 | Fic. | 2’ | SUB ENG
Asphaltotronic UPV Art Group, Viacheslav Buhaevskyi | Ukrainian SSR | 1967 | Fic. | 4’ | SUB ENG
Creepy Stories Volodymyr Honcharov, Valerii Konopliov, Vadym Tiuriaiev, Oleksandr Bubnov | Ukrainian SSR | 1991 | Fic. | 9’ | SUB ENG
A New Route I. Borysova, O. Holubchyk, V. Stolbovyi, A. Yarmoliuk, V. Malinov, A. Faustov, L. Galkin, A. Gordeiev, V. Khlolokina, A. Sydorenko, P. Imshenetskyi | Ukrainian SSR | 1981 | Fic. | 2’ | SUB ENG
Entering The Sea Leonid Osyka | Ukrainian SSR | 1965 | Fic. | 16’ | SUB ENG
KVK Students of the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute, supervised by Arkadii Faustov | Ukrainian SSR | 1965 | FIC. | 9’ | SUB ENG
KYIV FRESCOS Sergei Parajanov | Ukrainian SSR | 1966 | FIC. | 15’ | SUB ENG
Kyiv Sketch Eduard Tymlin | Ukrainian SSR | 1966 | FIC. | 9’ | SUB ENG
Mirage Students of the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute, supervised by Arkadii Faustov | Ukrainian SSR | 1984 | FIC. | 4’ | SUB ENG
MOSAICS Volodymyr Vrublevskyi | Ukrainian SSR | 1989 | FIC. | 7’ | SUB ENG
Show Us, We’re Interested Students of the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute, supervised by Arkadii Faustov | Ukrainian SSR | 1980 | FIC. | 10’ | SUB ENG
The End Of Vacation Serhii Lysenko | Ukrainian SSR | 1985 | FIC. | 29’ | SUB ENG
The Truth Close-up Volodymyr Honcharov | Ukrainian SSR | 1988 | FIC. | 9’ | SUB ENG
Untitled Mykola Peretiatko | Ukrainian SSR | 1990 | FIC. | 8’ | SUB ENG
Water Supply Ada Kviraia | Ukrainian SSR | 1987 | FIC. | 16’ | SUB ENG
Opening Film: Ivana The Terrible, an autobiographical docu-fiction
The Opening Film session is a part of the Focus Country program.
Special activities, projections, focus on new talents, schools, and other festivals – this is Focus Country, our section that highlights contemporary cinematographic culture by bringing the cinema circuit of a Central and Eastern European country to Portugal.
In this edition of BEAST IFF, Romania is honored by the program, which debuts at the Opening Session of the festival one of the most acclaimed documentaries of 2020: “Ivana The Terrible”, the second feature film by director Ivana Mladenović.
The film challenges the limits between drama, comedy, and non-fiction by accompanying the protagonist, who lives in Bucharest, during a tumultuous visit to her small hometown.
In this docu-fiction feature film, Mladenović proves to be an actress, screenwriter, and insightful filmmaker, guaranteeing her place among the newest and most interesting faces of New East cinema.
Selected for Opening Session:
Ivana The Terrible Ivana Mladenović | Romania, Serbia | 2019 | DOC | 86 ‘ | SUB. PT/EN
SELF-CARE
Synopsis
Romania’s ski and snowboard freestyle culture are still an unexplored gem. This is a short and vivid look at a joyful community and its traditions.
BIOGRAPHY
Hunor Pogony is an editor, who currently lives in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He studied and graduated Cinematography and Media at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj. Now, Hunor is working as an editor and DoP. His passion came from filming his friends and making videos of them doing scooter tricks. Hunor’s first directed film was a short documentary, ‘Self-Care’ which was also his bachelor’s degree project, based on freestyle ski and snowboard culture in Romania.
HUNOR POGONY
Romania
2020
Doc.
15’
Sub. ENG
WATER SUPPLY
Synopsis
A hand-held camera takes the viewer through the corner of an Abkhazian coast city all the way to the main character’s room. This film is a parable that continues the tradition of the Georgian school of poetic cinema, with its allegory and reflection on human nature.
