Cold Waves / Razboi pe Calea Undelor (2007)

Director: Alexandru Solomon
Screenwriter: Alexandru Solomon
Running time: 90 min.

screening co-presented by

How does fear and corruption bend down an entire society?
How easy does one give up his freedom?
Is there a way to avoid being an instrument of propaganda?
It might not seem a subversive act, but radio listening in Ceausescu’s Romania was a risky undertaking. Founded Radio Free Europe broadcast its music and pro-democracy propaganda across the Iron Curtain. As millions of listeners tuned in Ceausescu’s strong men worked to bring about its demise. Employing Carlos the Jackal to help bring about RFE’s demise, Ceausecu’s secret war included bombs and radiation attacks.
Romanian director Alexandru Solomon, who grew up listening to the station, uses a combination of wide-ranging interviews, archive and evocative re-enactment to relate the often unbelievable dramas taking place off-air. He explores the paralysing atmosphere of fear in 1980s Romania, and the failure of society to act collectively against the Ceausecu dictatorship. Meanwhile, the RFE editors didn’t always fight clean themselves…A chilling insight into the final chapter of the Cold War.
This is the unique story of a love and hate triangle built around something one cannot see, touch or weigh: radio waves.

Awards / Festivals
- Official Selection (Astra Film Festival Sibiu) 2007
- Official Selection (IDFA Amsterdam) 2007
- Official Selection (DOK Leipzig Film Festival) 2007
- Official Selection (Alpe Adria, Trieste) 2008
- Official Selection (Visions du Reel, Switzerland) 2008

** Q & A session with director Alexandru Solomon to follow screening.

The Flying Shepherd / Ciobanul Zburator (2008)

Director: Catalin Musat
Screenwriter: Catalin Musat
Running time: 26 min.

screening co-presented by

Shepherds generally have a hard and quiet life, walking their sheep flock over green hills with only the blue sky above their heads, away from the turbulent civilization. So is Jean and his fellow shepherds, Mihail and Patru found by the filming crew in Sibiel, doing daily duties near their sheep pasture. So far so good but some nifty Germans build a noisy airfield near the quiet sheep farm.
It’s an encounter between cultures, which becomes a detonator for a surreal kind of humour while embodying a great sense of freedom.

Awards / Festivals
- Special Mention (Locarno Int’l Film Festival) 2008
- Official Selection (DokMa Int’l Film Festival) 2008
- Official Selection (Festival Dei Popoli) 2008

** Q & A session with director Catalin Musat to follow screening.

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Don’t Get Me Wrong / Nu Te Supara, Dar… (2007)

Director: Adina Pintilie
Screenwriter: Adina Pintilie
Running time: 50 min.

screening co-presented by

‘Don’t Get Me Wrong’ is a brilliantly composed, unobtrusive documentary revealing the day to day lives of some of the patients in a Romanian psychiatric institution. Patients debate the existence of God and supernatural powers, repeatedly asking ‘how do you stop the rain?’ Others move stones every day or spend hours in the strange, ambient ‘entertainment room.
Blatantly absurd actions get a second meaning which is deeply emotional. The only way to escape the essential absurdity of this existence is through love.

Awards / Festivals
- Golden Dove, Best Documentary (DOK Leipzig) 2007
- Filmmakers of the present Competition (Locarno Int’l Film Festival) 2007
- Best of Fests (IDFA – Int’l Documentary Festival Amsterdam) 2007
- Best Woman Director (Int’l Film Festival of Contemporary Cinema) 2008
- Official Selection (Documenta Spain) 2008
- Official selection (Montpellier Int’l Film Festival) 2007