The longest-running film festival in Romania, the French Film Festival, continues until March 30 in 12 cities across the country: Bucharest, Arad, Brașov, Brăila, Cluj-Napoca, Constanța, Iași, Sfântu Gheorghe, Sibiu, Suceava, Târgu Mureș and Timișoara. The common thread that connects the 27 French films selected for this edition is the theme chosen for this year, Echos, meant to explore how stories and images are transmitted across generations, reflecting on memory, renewal and relationships.
Loïc Meuley, Cultural Attaché of the French Institute in Romania and Delegate Director of the French Institute in Bucharest, believes that such events are important for connecting the public to diverse perspectives in Europe.
"French cinema excels in addressing complex themes like identity, resilience, and social transformation with nuance and depth. Festivals like this one amplify these narratives by connecting audiences to diverse perspectives that resonate accross Europe and the world".
We continue to talk with Loïc Meuley about the 29th edition of the French Film Festival and the role of films in times of crisis.
The news that The French Film Festival brings to Romania bring
The 29th edition of the French Film Festival in Romania offers a rich program of 27 films divided into four sections, showcasing the diversity and vitality of French cinema. The theme, Échos, explores intergenerational connections, memory, and renewal, reflecting societal transformations. The festival includes works by established directors like François Ozon, Boris Lojkine, Arnaud Desplechin, Emmanuel Mouret, alongside emerging talents featured in the Young Talents Competition. We are also committed to bring young audience a dedicated section with three films following our engagement to promote cinema and the opportunities it brings as for exploring, discovering, sharing and developing a critical mindset. This year specifically we have an accessibilized screening of the film „Sauvages”, directed by Claude Barras, with sign language and subtitles for hearing-impaired people, as part of the European project „Cinema fără bariere” in which the French Institute is involved.
The importance of the festival in the times we go through
The festival is particularly significant in today’s context of cultural and social challenges. By fostering dialogue through cinema, it offers a platform for thinking and sharing on pressing issues such as identity, resilience, and generational change. In times of crises — whether political, environmental, or technological — one can see it as a cultural bridge between France and Romania, promoting shared values and mutual understanding through storytelling that resonates across generations.
The challenges and achievements of organizing a French film festival in Romania
Organizing the French Film Festival involves first of all logistical coordination across our co-orgazing partners in 11 cities, ensuring diverse programming, albeit some constraints, while maintaining high standards. Challenges, yet achievement, also include managing partnerships with local venues and adapting to audience expectations.
Our achievements include the festival’s growing reach and our will to diversify the experience, this year we have events such as cheese tasting or the creation of a specific perfume on the occasion of the presentation of some movies. And finally, the Festival’s ability to connect audiences with both established filmmakers and emerging voices is a testament to its success in promoting cultural exchange, almost for 30 years now.
Photo credit: Ioana Nanu
What organizing each edition involves
Curating each edition demands to ensure thematic coherence and the representation of film diversity. The selection process involves identifying films that resonate with the year’s theme, the audience’s expectations, while also seeking to shake and challenge them, and eventually balancing auteur works with accessible narratives. Sections such as Panorama feature internationally acclaimed titles, while competitions like Young Talents spotlight emerging filmmakers ensures a dynamic mix that appeals to varied audiences.
This year's theme, Échos
This year’s theme for French Film Festival, „Échos” was chosen to explore how stories and images are transmitted across generations, reflecting on memory, renewal, and relationships. It aligns with broader societal questions about identity and transformation in contemporary times. The selected films embody this concept by addressing both tensions and connections across generations, offering audiences an opportunity to reflect on shared human experiences through cinema. As the French Institute in Romania has been celebrating its 100 years, this theme is in direct line with our idea of transmission of history, memories, knowledge and common values.
The opening movie
The festival opened with „Monsieur Aznavour”, a biopic about Charles Aznavour directed by Mehdi Idir and Grand Corps Malade. Distributed in Romania by Independenta Film, this film was selected for its universal appeal and celebration of resilience, as it tells the story of an iconic artist who overcame many obstacles to become a symbol of French culture. And eventually it was presented as the opening film on the International Day of Francophonie. Its César nominations further underscored its both public and critical acclaims.
The selection of movies
This year’s festival features approximately 100 screenings across 12 cities with a total of 27 films divided into four sections: Panorama, Young Talents, Young Audience, and Short Films Competition. More accurately five sections if we take into account the section dedicated to French filmmaker Louis Malle that we programmed in Bucharest. The general selection prioritizes diversity by including works from established directors alongside emerging voices, ensuring representation of varied perspectives on contemporary issues such as identity, family dynamics, and social change.
Photo credit: Edward Varban
The special guests
The Festival hosts several notable guests who present their films at Cinema Elvire Popesco in Bucharest. This year’s lineup includes the twin directors Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma for their Venice-awarded film “Leurs Enfants après eux”. On this occasion, we programmed their first feature film “Teddy” presented in Cannes in 2020. We will also have along with us Mareike Engelhardt, director of her first feature film “Rabia”, and also the two main actors Marc Antonu Mozziconacci and Clara Maria Laredo of the film “À son image” directed by Thierry de Peretti. The audience will have the opportunity to meet them all during Q&A sessions. These interactions provide audiences with unique insights into the creative process and deepen their appreciation for French cinema.
The voices of French cinema brought to the attention of the Romanian audience
This year the Young Talents – Feature Film Competition highlights emerging filmmakers offering “fresh” and unique perspectives on contemporary issues, relationships and hopes through innovative narratives. Louise Courvoisier’s “Vingt Dieux” offers a unique glimpse of her native region Jura through a powerful, acclaimed and rewarded film. With “Mon Inséparable”, Anne-Sophie Bailly shows the challenges of a single mum with her disabled 20-year-old child. “Hiver à Sokcho” from the French-Japanese director Koya Kamura offers a very poetic and sensitive adaptation of the eponym book. Finally, with “Rabia”, Mareike Engelhardt explores disillusions and radicalization of young women across the world joining Daech in Syria as they are seeking for a purpose to their lives, yet facing the gruesome reality of their condition and the crimes as they arrive. Mareike Engelhardt will be in Bucharest to present her movie.
Photo credit: Natalia Oprea
The features films from Panorama section
The Panorama section features films presented at prestigious international festivals like Cannes, Venice, Locarno, San Sebastian. Selection criteria emphasize artistic excellence, thematic relevance to the year’s theme and audience appeal. The audience can see titles such as “Leurs Enfants après eux” by Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma, awarded drama exploring social, love and generational issues along the 1990’s in the North-Eastern French region as the de-industrialization increases tensions. „Diamant Brut”, distributed by Voodoo Films, explores the identity quest of youngsters in the era of mass and social media and TV-reality, „Spectateurs !” is a very personal film by Arnaud Desplechin where he pasy a magnificient tribute to cinema by the point of view of the audience. Finally, „À son image” from Thierry de Peretti, a great-awarded French director, sets a drama set on his native island, Corsica. The drama spans in the 1980s and 1990s and displays the impacts the political vents on various generations, their relationships, their destinies. Indepedența Film distributes the film in Romania.
The role of the cinema nowadays
Cinema is a powerful medium for raising awareness about social crises by sparking debates and forming opinions through powerful and impactful narratives. For instance, the film „Jouer avec le Feu” sets the far-right radicalization of a young man as his personal and family frustrations slightly lead him to vow admiration to violence and anger and set himself in opposition to his proper friends and family and isolating himself, revealing the mechanics of the vicious circle of this radicalization. French cinema excels in addressing complex themes like identity, resilience, and social transformation with nuance and depth. Festivals like this one amplify these narratives by connecting audiences to diverse perspectives that resonate accross Europe and the world. And this is what the 29th edition of the French Film Festival in Romania has reflected.
