11/06/2013 - Mihai Chirilov has been associated with TIFF since the beginning and also curated this 12th edition, which ended June 9, 2013.

Cineuropa: As with most festivals, there was less money available this year. How does the festival cope?
Mihai Chirilov: TIFF 2013 underwent the most severe cuts in its history, with less money from the Ministry of Culture and National Film Center. This isn’t a budget but a corruption problem; some dubious events are now financed by state institutions instead. On a general level, film is still not an accepted art in Romania, despite the foreign success of the Romanian New Wave. Thankfully, the local authorities understood the importance of our event for the city and continue to support it, calling it a brand – but their financial involvement has remained the same for the past six years, though TIFF has grown exponentially. The festival got so big that I decided to cut the number of films by 20% (now 155 features and some 40 shorts) and thus costs also diminished, though that wasn’t the main objective as I was more concerned with keeping the festival manageable for audiences and ourselves. One thing's for sure: we want to keep the festival spirit the way it was, otherwise people will not come back.

How would you describe this year’s programme?
There are more films submitted each year and sometimes there’s pressure but I've learnt to navigate troubled waters. I have a solid team and the amount of work can be tough but it's still pleasant to dig in and find the gems. I don't have a hidden agenda and I'm not looking for themes or motifs. I'd rather let them find me and favour diversity and good films. I don't want to put the audience in a box, but rather play with their expectations. The more eclectic and surprising the selection, the better. Every year I invite one or two countries in our Focus section and this year they’re Greece and Slovakia. Greece simply had some good years in cinema and their success needs to be highlighted. For Slovakia it was different: if you're an adventurous programmer, you won't wait three or four more years for a specific country to confirm what seems to be emerging and instead, you instantly set a showcase.

Every year you show the latest local films in the Romanian Days program. What’s the current state of Romanian cinema?
There are slightly more films made every year, despite the terrible financial conditions, and it's rewarding to see Romanian cinema still riding the Wave and grabbing awards, such as recently in Berlin. Most of the awarded films, however, perform poorly at the local box-office, which is a shame; the fact there aren't many theatres in Romania is a major handicap. There's no strategy to optimize the impact and the presence of Romanian films locally or a law to protect the visibility of Romanian films in especially multiplexes. The National Film Center is a compromised and archaic institution, marked every year by scandals, anomalies and corruption. Local comedies and genre films have partly compensated for this, which I guess is a small victory, as at least people watch some Romanian films. For young filmmakers, the situation’s still really tough. They have to stay in line for years if they want to use state money, sometimes they are even humiliated like it was the case with Adina Pintilie's first feature; her script was widely awarded but it was snubbed by the Film Center commission when she applied. Other filmmakers have turned to alternative solutions.