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TRANSILVANIA 2021

The Transilvania International Film Festival announces its Official Competition titles

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- 12 first and second features will compete for the Transilvania Trophy at the 20th-anniversary edition to be held in picturesque Cluj-Napoca

The Transilvania International Film Festival announces its Official Competition titles
Unidentified by Bogdan George Apetri

After unveiling the rich and much-anticipated Romanian Days programme (see the news), the Transilvania International Film Festival (23 July-1 August) has just made public its selection for the Official Competition as well. All included titles are Romanian premieres, and nine of them are feature debuts.

Two of the Romanian films to be shown within the Romanian Days sidebar will be throwing their hats in the ring for the Transilvania Trophy, too: Eugen Jebeleanu’s LGBT debut drama Poppy Field [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Eugen Jebeleanu
film profile
]
(Romania) and Bogdan George Apetri’s police thriller Unidentified [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Romania/Latvia/Czech Republic), which is his second feature.

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Among the debuting contenders are Greek director Christos Nikou’s apocalyptic Apples [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Christos Nikou
film profile
]
(Greece/Poland/Slovenia), initially presented at Transilvania Pitch Stop, while also being backed by Cate Blanchett as an executive producer and later being submitted as the Greek Oscar entry; Iuli Gerbase’s claustrophobic The Pink Cloud (Brazil), which premiered at Sundance and won the Grand Prix at the Sofia International Film Festival; Marat Sargsyan’s war drama The Flood Won't Come [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marat Sargsyan
film profile
]
(Lithuania); the Polish black comedy Marygoround [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Daria Woszek
film profile
]
by Daria Woszek, which triumphed at the Gijón International Film Festival; and the Indian flick Pebbles by PS Vinothraj, which is based on a true story and won the Tiger Award at the latest International Film Festival Rotterdam. There are some excellent choices among the second features as well, including Georgian filmmaker Alexandre Koberidze’s atmospheric What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alexandre Koberidze
film profile
]
(Georgia/Germany), which started its international journey at this year’s Berlinale; and Hungarian helmer Lili Horvát’s dreamlike Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lili Horvat
interview: Natasa Stork
film profile
]
, first presented in competition in the 17th Giornate degli Autori at Venice. The remaining titles in the competition are That Was Life [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Damián París and Rosa Garcí…
interview: David Martín de los Santos
film profile
]
by David Martín de los Santos (Spain/Belgium), The Last Bath [+see also:
film review
film profile
]
by David Bonneville (Portugal/France) and The Whaler Boy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Philipp Yuryev
film profile
]
by Philipp Yuryev (Russia/Poland/Belgium).

This year’s jury consists of five members: Mexican screenwriter, author, producer and Oscar nominee Guillermo Arriaga; executive director of the Israel Film Fund Katriel Schory; American actor, director and producer Scott Coffey (Inland Empire [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
); and Romanian actress Maria Popistașu, who is in Radu Muntean’s latest movie, Întregalde [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Radu Muntean
film profile
]
, set to be presented in the Directors’ Fortnight at the imminent Cannes Film Festival, as well as appearing in key Romanian New Wave films, such as Tuesday, After Christmas [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Radu Muntean
film profile
]
and Love Sick. The fifth member of the jury is yet to be confirmed.

The Transilvania International Film Festival will open on 23 July with the spicy sex comedy The People Upstairs [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cesc Gay
film profile
]
by Catalonian director Cesc Gay and will continue unspooling until 1 August.

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