Grab a bite! A Taste of the New Romanian Films of 2009 with Mihai Chirilov & Richard Pena

In the past three years, Romanian Cinema burst on the In the past three years, Romanian Cinema burst on the international scene and got wide recognition. The time has come to prove that the so-called New Wave wasn't a one-hit-wonder. This year's Berlin Film Festival featured a strong Romanian presence (two feature film debuts and two short films) and there's already a frantic buzz surrounding the new titles slated to open in Cannes.

Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) is back on track with an ambitious omnibus project that he wrote and co-directed, TALES FROM THE GOLEN AGE. Corneliu Porumboiu (12:08 East of Bucharest) returns with a far more radical second film. Razvan Radulescu, the officially acknowledged screenwriter of the New Wave, directed his first feature that he co-wrote, FELICIA, FIRST OF ALL, while Bobby Paunescu, the producer of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, made his first steps as a director with FRANCESCA, produced by Cristi Puiu.

Join us on April 22nd for an exclusive introduction to the most anticipated Romanian features and documentaries of 2009! Following the great critical response to the Romanian films previously released in the US, the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York kindly invite festival programmers and movie lovers alike to attend this presentation.

The film menu, complete with snippets from the above mentioned titles and several others, is planned by Mihai Chirilov, film critic and director of Transilvania International Film Festival, and will be followed by a roundtable dedicated to the future of the Romanian New Wave, with the participation of Richard Pena, director of the New York Film Festival and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

A 'sister-event' will take place in Los Angeles, CA, on WED, April 29th, 6-8 PM (at UCLA, Room A65, Humanities Building), in collaboration with the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, UCLA, the Center for European and Eurasian Studies, UCLA, the Romanian Club at UCLA, and with the support of the Consulate General of Romania in Los Angeles, and the South East European Film Festival, Los Angeles.

Special thanks to Romanian Film Promotion and Este'N'Est Association in Bucharest for the documentation materials provided.



[Still from "Tales from the Golden Age", written and co-directed by Cristian Mungiu]