JANUARY 23, FILM PROJECTION AND QANDA WITH TWO DIRECTORS, CINEMATECA ROMANA, SALA UNION, STR. ION CÂMPINEANU NR. 21, 4PM - 9 PM
FILM PROGRAM:
1. Das Kind, Yonathan Levy (France, 2010), 93 min, documentary
ROMANIAN PREMIERE
95-year old Irma Miko was born in Romania in 1914. A Jewish Communist and political activist from age 14, Irma joined the French Resistance in Paris in 1941. Her unimaginably dangerous assignment was to bring occupying German soldiers into the Resistance. A deeply moving account of a vanishing world and a portrait of an extraordinary, brave woman, the film won Best Film at the European Independent Film Festival, Paris.
2. Transnistria: The Hell, Zoltan Terner (Israel, 1996), 40:57min, documentary
ROMANIAN PREMIERE
From 1941 to 1944, 300,000 Jews were killed at the hands of Rumanian officials in Transnistria, an area of southern Ukraine which bordered Rumania. Unlike the “killing industry” of Auschwitz, Rumanian death camps used the “old methods” of “long drawn-out deaths”: shooting, starvation, freezing, and illness. Of those who survived, only the children are left. Now adults living in Israel, these orphans of Transnistria give testimony with their memories, paintings, letters, and photographs. Scholars, including Drs. Dalia Ofer and Leon Wallovitz from Hebrew University and Dr. Shmuel Ben-Tzion, discuss the history of Transnistria and probe the reasons why this area has become known as the “Forgotten Cemetery.”
3.Mamaliga Blues, de Cassio Tolpolar (Brazil, 2014), 56min, documentary
ROMANIAN PREMIERE
Mamaliga Blues, Cassio Tolpolar, 2014, Brazil, 56min, documentar, in English In 1931, Abram Tolpolar and his wife, Rachel, immigrated from Bessarabia/Moldova to southern Brazil. Seventy-seven years later, their only child, Mauro Tolpolar, made the trip back. Accompanied by his two kids, who never had a chance to meet their paternal grandparents, Mauro visited his parents’ birthplace and also found answers to an unrevealed past. Having only one remaining photograph of a lost family grave, the Tolpolars drove through ancient villages, walked in the bushes of abandoned cemeteries and met locals, looking for what happened to their relatives who disappeared during the Holocaust and getting to know the current Jewish community in Moldova.
4. Valley of Sighs, Mihai Andrei Leaha (Romania, 2013), 56min, documentary
Between 1943 and 1945, 25.000 Romani people were deported to Transnistria by the Antonescu regime. Half of them soon died of hunger, cold or other causes. 70 years later, a few survivors, who were of a very young age at that time, recall and give a sad account of those terrible events. The film aims to reconstruct the journey, places and tragic experiences of the past. Interviews with the members of the Ukrainian community from Transnistria expand the stories of the Roma survivors and transform an area nowadays apparently trivial in a place of anthropological value, memories and tears.
The director will be present for a discussion with the public after the screening.
JANUARY 24 MACAZ BAR TEATRU COOP., CALEA MOȘILOR 106 4 – 11 PM
FILM PROGRAM:
1.Son of Saul, Laszlo Nemes (Ungaria, 2015), 107min, drama
In the horror of 1944 Auschwitz, a prisoner forced to burn the corpses of his own people finds moral survival upon trying to salvage from the flames the body of a boy he takes for his son.
2. Scarred Hearts, Radu Jude (Romania, 2016), 141min, drama
Emanuel spends his days at a sanatorium. Falling in love with another patient, he narrates his and his fellow patients’ attempts to live life to the fullest as their bodies slowly fade away, but their minds refuse to give up.
3. Jeno Janovics, A Hungarian Pathe, Bálint Zágoni (Romania/Ungaria, 2011), 62min, documentary
A documentary about Jeno Janovics, one of the best Hungarian theatrical directors of the beginning of the 20th century. In 1913 he started his own film studio, and being between the first Hungarian filmmakers, who adopted literary works on the screen he became in a short time famous, rich and one of the most envied citizens of Cluj. After WW1 Janovics, who had great influence and significant fortune, made such a sacrifice to save his theatrical group, that even today is hard to imagine.
4. Natan, Paul Duane/David Cairns (Marea Britanie, 2013), 66min, documentary
ROMANIAN PREMIERE
Bernard Natan could be described as one of the fathers of French cinema. How did he come to be completely forgotten, especially so in France? How is it that what little attention is paid to him centres on his alleged career as a pioneer and performer in early gay and BDSM porn? Why was Bernard Natan’s name erased from the history of cinema, despite the fact that he dominated the French film industry for much of the ‘20s and ‘30s? David Cairns and Paul Duane have excavated an extraordinary tale that aims to rewrite the history of European cinema. Rumours have swarmed around his story for decades but this documentary finally brings the truth to light.
The director will be present for a discussion with the public after the screening.
