Having awoken from a brief mid-winter hibernation, we’re very excited to bring you the following news. North America’s largest documentary festival, Hot Docs, is set to begin on April 29 (running until May 9), showcasing over 170 films from 40 countries. We are extremely happy to announce that ToRo Arts Group will be co-presenting the screening of Alexander Nanau’s The World According to Ion B. The screening is part of Hot Docs’ “Next” program, which explores creativity in the performing and visual arts.

Please visit the Hot Docs website for more information – http://www.hotdocs.ca/film/title/the_world_according_to_ion_b

Director: Alexander Nanau
Producer(s): Carmen Harabagiu, Aurelian Nica, Andrei Cretulescu
Executive Producer: Alexander Nanau
Writer: Alexander Nanau
Cinematographer: Alexander Nanau
Editor: Mircea Olteanu
Composer: Dan Parvu
Sound: Matthias Lempert

“Ion Bârlădeanu is a homeless man living in a garbage-strewn alleyway in Bucharest when he is discovered by a gallerist and lands his first art show at the age of sixty-two. After decades of toiling in obscurity, amassing thousands of image clippings, Ion’s collages are now being curated and collected. An outsider turned ingénue, he goes from being a “useless piece of junk” under communism to a big success—with his own home and bicycle—within capitalism. Living under Ceausescu’s regime forced Ion to create art in the truest sense—for himself, as a means of self-expression. His scathing and provocative political collages make statements that could never have been made in Romanian society until now. Proving Hippocrates’ adage that ‘art is long, life is short,’ filmmaker Alexander Nanau chronicles one man’s complete transformation at the end of his life, and shows how his art will outlive us all.”
- Angie Driscoll

Best Documentary – Gopo Awards 2010

Official Site – http://www.theworldaccordingtoionb.com/

Screening times:
Friday, April 30 7:15 pm  - Innis Town Hall (Buy tickets)

Sunday, May 02 1:45 pm – Cumberland 2 (Buy tickets)

Having awoken from a brief mid-winter hibernation, we’re very excited to bring you the following news. North America’s largest documentary festival, Hot Docs, is set to begin on April 29 (running until May 9), showcasing over 170 films from 40 countries. We are extremely happy to announce that ToRo Arts Group will be co-presenting the screening of Alexander Nanau’s The World According to Ion B. The screening is part of Hot Docs’ “Next” program, which explores creativity in the performing and visual arts.

Please visit the Hot Docs website for more information – http://www.hotdocs.ca/film/title/the_world_according_to_ion_b

Director: Alexander Nanau
Producer(s): Carmen Harabagiu, Aurelian Nica, Andrei Cretulescu
Executive Producer: Alexander Nanau
Writer: Alexander Nanau
Cinematographer: Alexander Nanau
Editor: Mircea Olteanu
Composer: Dan Parvu
Sound: Matthias Lempert

“Ion Bârlădeanu is a homeless man living in a garbage-strewn alleyway in Bucharest when he is discovered by a gallerist and lands his first art show at the age of sixty-two. After decades of toiling in obscurity, amassing thousands of image clippings, Ion’s collages are now being curated and collected. An outsider turned ingénue, he goes from being a “useless piece of junk” under communism to a big success—with his own home and bicycle—within capitalism. Living under Ceausescu’s regime forced Ion to create art in the truest sense—for himself, as a means of self-expression. His scathing and provocative political collages make statements that could never have been made in Romanian society until now. Proving Hippocrates’ adage that ‘art is long, life is short,’ filmmaker Alexander Nanau chronicles one man’s complete transformation at the end of his life, and shows how his art will outlive us all.”
- Angie Driscoll

Best Documentary – Gopo Awards 2010

Official Site – http://www.theworldaccordingtoionb.com/

Screening times:
Friday, April 30 7:15 pm  - Innis Town Hall (Buy tickets)

Sunday, May 02 1:45 pm – Cumberland 2 (Buy tickets)

Constantin and Elena / Constantin si Elena (2008)
Director: Andrei Dascalescu
Running time: 102 min.

screening co-presented by

In a Romanian village, an elderly couple has been happily married for almost 55 years. Constantin and Elena know that life must end, but are happy with everything that they’ve had. They fill their days with chores in and around the house, going to church and receiving welcome visitors, not to mention a catnap every now and then. Everything that these two old lovebirds do, they do slowly: from helping each other get dressed and climb ladders to weaving beautiful tapestries. Often they sing old Romanian songs at the top of their voices, or Constantin’s old battle songs from his army days. Constantin and Elena aren’t afraid of death, and discuss it in a practical way. They’re proud of what they’re leaving behind and happy with their love. But they do think it’s unfortunate that they have so little time left together. As Constantin puts it, “With one eye I cry, with the other, I laugh.” Director Andrei Dascalescu spent a year following this loving couple. His camera films each scene from a different position. It never pans or zooms in, and there’s no voice-over or interviews. This love story tells itself in images, and the filmmaker, also the couple’s grandson, keeps himself invisible.

2009 – First Appearance Award at IDFA
2009 – Best Documentary Nomination at the Gopo Awards

Q&A session with director Andrei Dascalescu will follow the aforementioned screening.

Electro (2007)

Director: Matei-Alexandru Mocanu
Screenwriter: Matei-Alexandru Mocanu
Running time: 52 min.

screening co-presented by

“A snapshot of a subculture in development as Bucharest DJs, promoters and clubbers talk about the Romanian capital’s growing electronica scene.”
A fresh look at electronica from the perspective of a country shaking off pop-culture isolation, Matei-Alexandru Mocanu’s stylish documentary is a snapshot of a subculture in development. Bucharest DJs, promoters and clubbers with tastes ranging from thumping techno to experimental sound sculpture address the different subsets of the scene, the influence of fashion and drugs, relations with the international electronic underground, and the question of whether they are building a movement or just making music.

Awards / Festivals
- Official Selection (Transylvania Int’l Film Festival) 2007
- Official Selection (ASTRA Film Sibiu – Int`l Festival of Documentary Film and Visual Anthropology) 2007
- Official Selection (Ethnocineca08  - Austria) 2008
- Official Selection ( MusiXine / Oulu Music Video Festival – Finland) 2008
- Official Selection (Music on Film – Film on Music – Czech Republic) 2008
- Official Selection (DaKino Int`l Film Festival) 2007

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Viva Constanta ! (2007)

Director: Ambrus Emese
Screenwriter: Ambrus Emese
Running time: 43 min.

screening co-presented by

Tudor Lakatos is a 40-year-old Gipsy teacher in the ghetto of Somcuta, in the northern region of Romania, who wants to become famous as an Elvis Presley imitator. He translates most of the King’s songs into the Gipsy language. One day, under the name of Elvis Rromano (Gipsy Elvis), he sets off to the port city of Constanta to try his luck with popularizing this kind of music, rock and rom (Gipsy rock).

Awards / Festivals
- Special Prize for Best Documentary on Intercultural Dialogue (DocumFest Film Festival, Timisoara) 2008
- Official Selection (ASTRA Film Sibiu – Int`l Festival of Documentary Film and Visual Anthropology) 2007
- Official Selection (Göttingen International Ethnographic Film Festival) 2008
- Official Selection (CineFest Int’l Festival of Young Filmmakers) 2008
- Official Selection (Transylvania Int’l Film Festival) 2008
- Official Selection (DaKINO Int’l Film Festival) 2007

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