Bucharest Film Festival from the 19th to the 25th of March 2012

The Bucharest film festival, which was born in 2005, is going to be inaugurated, and the Rumanian capital city is ready to turn into the European capital city of cinema, at least for a few days, and to welcome film lovers coming from all over the country, and beyond.

As far as tradition and renown are concerned this film festival is no match for other European events that are now become part of the cinema history, like Venice, Cannes and Berlin, but in spite of its being very young, the Bucharest festival had gained a place in the sun among the most appreciated film festivals of the old continent.

The 2012 festival will kick off on the 19th of March, giving all the film lovers and professionals the possibility to immerse in the world of Rumanian cinema, and not only in that. The Bucharest festival was conceived 7 years ago as an event focused on art house movies and only includes feature films. The Bucharest film festival has been especially meant to encourage new film currents and perspectives, as well as to throw light on emerging talents and new directors that are not very popular yet but who are certainly promising and well-known both in Romania and abroad. Not a simple showcase for famous actors and directors, but a real cultural workshop and a chance for cinema lovers to discover new aspects of Rumanian, European and world cinema that are still hidden.

The feature films that will be presented during the festival will compete for the trophy for the best movie, which will be awarded by an official jury together with another jury only made of film critics, which for the second time in the festival’s history will accompany the official jury. The president of the jury this year will be Jan Harlan, a German film producer and director who is well-known for having been the producer of Stanley Kubrick’s movies. Harlan and the unforgettable director, who is considered as one of the absolute geniuses of world cinema, artistically met for the first time in 1969, when Kubrick was working at his project on Napoleon, which he then abandoned. The first movie in which Harlan collaborated was A Clockwork Orange, and four years later he become the executive producer of Kubrick’s movies, from Barry Lyndon to Shining, from Full Metal Jacket to Eyes Wide Shut, the last work by Kubrick. After the death of the director, in 1999, Harlan worked with directors as important as Steven Spielberg, he realized a documentary dedicated to Kubrick (Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Picture) and another one on Malcolm McDowell, the British actor and protagonist of A Clockwork Orange. Harlan also lectures at film schools and is often asked to serve in juries at international competitions, as happened in the case of the Bucharest film festival.

The date to save for all the movie lovers (especially if you love art house cinema), for the professionals and film experts is the 19th March, when the Bucharest Film Festival will kick off, also giving you the chance – if you have not done so yet – to visit a beautiful city which perhaps is not very well-known yet.