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Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) - Third edition

Romanian Film Promotion is organizing between May 28th – June 6th 2004, in Cluj-Napoca, The Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), the only film festival in Romania solely intended for feature-films.


City of Cluj is the main cultural centre of Transilvania and is located within an area known for its past, as part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and which has a great tourism potential. Cluj is an old town, has a long academic and historic tradition and is also well known for having the best cinema attendance per inhabitant among all Romanian cities.

TIFF is a member of CENTEAST, Central and Eastern European Film Festivals Alliance. The 2003 edition of the festival took place between May 23rd – 31st. 70 films have been shown in three cinemas during 153 screenings. 122 guests and 105 journalists have been present – both Romanian and foreign, as well as 95 volunteers from Cluj and abroad (USA, China, Ireland, Singapore). In all, over 15,000 people attended the screenings, more than 60% in comparison with the 2002 edition.

TIFF's schedule is divided in 5 sections: Competition - for 1st or 2nd films (fiction), Supernova - panorama of films awarded at several international film festivals, 3 x 3 - retrospective of a famous director / actor invited to the festival, Shadows - light night section – horror / fantasy / Dracula films – starting at midnight, Romanian films - short and feature films.

The competition of the Festival will include 12 films.
Among the confirmed titles from the festival program are: the Danish film Reconstruction, directed by Christoffer Boe, awarded the Camera D’Or in Cannes and the FIPRESCI Prize for best debut at the San Sebastian Festival, the 2003 Academy Award winner for Best Documentary, Bowling for Columbine, directed by Michael Moore, which will be shown in the opening of the Festival, and the long-awaited Elephant by Gus Van Sant, Palme d'Or in Cannes 2003. Two 2004 Oscar nominated films will also be shown – the Swedish film Evil directed by Mikael Hafstrom, and American Splendor, directed by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Festival and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2003 Cannes Festival. Cluj audience will also have the chance to attend premiere of the documentary film “The Great Communist Bank Robbery” directed by Alexandru Solomon, about the greatest Romanian bank robbery ever which took place in 1959.
The new section CINEPUB will be dedicated to the relationship between film and advertising. Cinepub will present seminars attended by film and advertising experts and also a screening of the Kings of Ads collection, for the first time ever in Romania. It is a 2 hours and 30 minutes selection of promos signed by famous directors like Ridley Scott, Spike Lee, David Lynch, Emir Kusturica, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, etc. The whole event will be shaped and produced by Gav/Balkanski.proiect.

The already known 3X3 section will present the portraits of two famous directors: Wong Kar Wai and Lars von Trier, by presenting three of their films.

The short films section will offer a program including the short Romanian films Coffee and Cigarettes by Cristi Puiu, winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, Cristian Nemescu’s Poveste la scara C, Grand Prix at the Angers festival, both of them already been nominated for this year’s European Film Academy Awards, and Corneliu Porumboiu's Visul lui Liviu, selected for Cinefondation at Cannes 2004.

TIFF will also host the annual reunion of South Eastern Europe Cinema Network, where National Film Centers representatives from different countries will debate themes related to inter-regional collaboration and co-productions.

Rutger Hauer has confirmed the participation to the third edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) as a member of the jury. Together with the Romanian director Cristian Mungiu and two international film specialists, including Margaret von Schiller, selecter of the prestigious Berlin Film Festival, Panorama section, he will decide on this year winners of the TIFF Awards, among others Transilvania Trophy for the best film in competition. Dagur Kari’s film Noi Albinoi (Iceland), was the winner of the "Transilvania Trophy”, last year.

Julie Delpy, co-starring with Ethan Hawke in Before Sunrise and Before Sunset both directed by Richard Linklater has also confirmed her participation to the Festival.

The Romanian actor Victor Rebengiuc will be the recipient of the Transilvania International Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, which will be presented to him during this year's edition. In this occasion, his latest film Niki and Flo, directed by Lucian Pintilie, will be shown in Cluj.