Schedule:

November 7, 2024

7:00 Pm: Where Elephants Go

WHERE ELEPHANTS GO is a film in which no elephant appears. It is a story of love and friendship between three characters in a difficult moment of their existence: Leni, a sick little girl, but at the same time full of life; Marcel, a young man with suicidal tendencies for no reason or perhaps for all the reasons in the world; Magda, a mother who tries to forget that life is terrible. WHERE ELEPHANTS GO is a pseudo-melodrama, a puzzle film that the viewers are invited to decipher. And it's a comedy... or almost a comedy.

Directors C?t?lin Rotaru & Gabi Virginia ?arga

C?t?lin Rotaru and Gabi ?arga is a Romanian writer/director duo. In 2003, they graduated from the National University of Theatre and Cinema in Bucharest (UNATC) where they studied acting. They have been writing and directing for television and theatre for almost 20 years. Their debut short film, 4:15PM. THE END OF THE WORLD premiered at Cannes IFF in 2016. Their debut feature film, THOU SHALT NOT KILL, premiered at Warsaw IFF in 2018.

November 8, 2024

7:00 PM: Holy Week

The Holy Week, around 1900, somewhere in Romania. The tense relationship between the Jewish innkeeper Leiba and Gheorghe, his Christian employee, reaches the point where the innkeeper decides to expel the latter. Revengeful, Gheorghe promises Leiba that he will return on Easter Night to “settle” his accounts. This threat comes as a last straw against Leiba’s attempts to cohabit with his hostile, anti-Semitic environment. From then on, Leiba will struggle distinguishing between the real danger and the one fabricated by his anxieties, engaging onto a path of transformation leading to extreme consequences.

Director Andrei Cohn
Born in Bucharest in 1972, Andrei Cohn is trained in Fine Arts before turning to directing and screenwriting. After a series of short films in the early 2010s, Cohn directs his first feature, BACK HOME in 2015, then AREST in 2019. The latter was presented in competition at Karlovy Vary, at the Transilvania International Film Festival and the Cairo Film Festival. HOLY WEEK is his third feature film.

November 9, 2024

4:00 PM: War boy

Fall of 1944. World War II is closing to an end. Nicu, a teenager, embarks on a journey through the wilderness of the Apuseni Mountains, in Western Romania, trying to save the horses of his family. He is very attached to his horses caring and talking to them. When a group of wounded German soldiers arrive in the village and begin preparations to retreat, Nicu's horses are taken to help carry men and war equipment. Desperate to save his horses, Nicu steals back his horses and runaways in the forest planning to take them East, over the mountain, to his uncle. On his way through the wild landscape, Nicu meets James, a wounded American pilot who was shot down during a raid bombardment.

Director Marian Cri?an
Born in 1976, Marian Cri?an received his bachelor Degree in Film and TV Directing at the National University of Theatre and Cinema in Bucharest (UNATC) in 1999. With MEGATRON, he won the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008.

7:00 PM: Horia

Restless teenager Horia takes off on his father’s old motorbike in a cross-country journey to reunite with his love. On the road, he is joined by Stela, a sassy 13-year-old, and an unlikely friendship blooms. “For me,” Ana-Maria Com?nescu explains, ”HORIA’s story is about adventure, discoveries and friendship. The film’s atmosphere is colorful, lively, sunny, filled with music, lots of landscapes and endless roads, in a Romanian modern reinterpretation of the American road movies of the 1960s and 1970s.”

Director Ana-Maria Com?nescu
Ana-Maria Com?nescu is a Romanian screenwriter and director based in Bucharest. She made three short films during her studies at the National University of Theatre and Cinema in Bucharest (UNATC), all screened and awarded in various European student film festivals.  While writing and developing her debut feature project, HORIA, she participated in multiple film workshops and pitching markets, such as Sarajevo Talents in 2017 and MIDPOINT Feature Launch in 2019. In 2022, she started her Ph.D. in Cinema and became an assistant professor of Directing at UNATC.

November 10, 2024

4:00 Pm: Twst: Things We Said Today

TWST takes as its starting point the arrival of the Beatles in New York for their August 1965 concert at Shea Stadium, and as its title a Beatles song that alludes to the inexorable passing of time. Merging period footage with animation and following several characters through three intense summer days, Ujic?’s original film goes beyond established genres to explore a time of upheaval and change when a new political arrangement, new social norms, new tastes are about to sweep away the old ways. A superb meditation on youthful bliss, the passing of time and the political, moral and aesthetic origins of our current societies as well as an hymn to New York City, glittering under the August sun. 

Director Andrei Ujic?

Andrei Ujic? is a screenwriter and director known for his subversive non-fictional films. Born in 1951, with a notable career in literature, in 1990 he decided to devote himself to cinema. In the same year, together with Harun Farocki, he made VIDEOGRAMS OF A REVOLUTION (1990), a powerful film about the relationship between political power and the media in Europe at the end of the Cold War. Les Cahiers du Cinema listed the film as one of the top 10 subversive films of all time. VIDEOGRAMS was the first part of a trilogy about the end of communism, which continued with OUT OF THE PRESENT (1995), the story of the cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov, who spent 10 months on board of the MIR space station, while back on Earth, with the Soviet Union collapsing. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NICOLAE CEAU?ESCU, which premiered in 2010 at Cannes, ends the trilogy with a haunting portrait of the infamous dictator, recreated through period footage, and a brilliant reflection on history. For many years, Ujic? was a professor at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. He founded the ZKM Film Institute in 2002.

7:00 Pm: Three Kilometres To The End Of The World

17-year old Adi is spending the summer in his home village in the Danube Delta. One night he is brutally attacked on the street and his world is turned upside-down. When the family is violently confronted with a truth they can neither understand nor accept, the unconditional love Adi should receive from his parents suddenly disappears, and Adi is left with only one solution. The film premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Queer Palm. The competes as the Romanian entry for the 2025 Oscar for Best International Feature.

Director Emanuel Pârvu

Born in 1979, Emanuel Pârvu is a film and theatre actor, director, writer and academic at the Faculty of Arts of the Ovidius University in Constan?a. He graduated from the National University of Theatre and Cinema in Bucharest in 2006. As an actor, he performed in GRADUATION (d. Cristian Mungiu), MIRACLE (d. Bogdan George Apetri), TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE (d. C. Mungiu), PORTRAIT OF THE FIGHTER AS A YOUNG MAN (d. Constantin Popescu). He directed two feature films: MEDA OR THE NOT SO BRIGHT SIDE OF THINGS (2017) and MAROCCO/MIKADO (2021).

Date: November 7 - 10, 2024

Location:

Landmark's E Street Cinema - 555 11th Street NorthWest Washington, DC 20004

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