10 · 05 · 09

FICM presents the first Romanian program

Doris Morales

Daniela Michel, director of FICM, dressed in traditional Romanian attire, thanked the public for being there on Romania’s Independence Day, and said, “The idea of organizing this program began last year, when Cristian Mungiu was part of the jury and we decided on the selection of the 25 works.”

“I’d like to stress the importance of seeing these films so that you can understand why [Romania] is considered to have the best cinema of the world,” she said. “And it has been a great honor, a privilege, to have the support of Cristian and his associate Hanno Höfer, who is here with us, in order to bring [to the festival] the films produced from 2000 to the present. We also complement the program with the screening of the first film made in Romania, The Independence of Romania, with live music by pianist Deborah Silberer, who was born in Bucarest and currently lives in Mexico City.”

“Without a doubt, bringing the films was a titanic task,” said Michel. “There are not many copies and the Romanian Film Institute supported us a great deal and we are very grateful to them, the office of Cristian Mungiu and the Romanian ambassador.”

Manuela Vulpe, Romanian ambassador in Mexico, also thanked Michel for wearing her Romanian dress and the public for their interest in the films from her country. “I have the honor of being a witness to a very impressive presentation of new filmmakers …and all that Daniela Michel has done to promote Romanian cinema and its filmmakers. Without them I could never have appeared as a successful ambassador, because the true ambassadors of a country are, in this case, its filmmakers.”

The first program dedicated to Romanian cinematography includes Humanitarian Aid by Hanno Höfer; La tormenta by Constantin Popescu; Networking Friday, by Melissa de Raaf and Razvan Radulescu, and Traffic, by Catalin Mitulescu.
 
At the end of the screening, Romanian director Hanno Höfer spoke with the public in relation to his short film Humanitarian Aid, a story of three young people who arrive at a Romanian town and are welcomed by the residents with a party that lasts all week.

Höfer said he chose the story because he felt it said a lot about the Romanian people: their warmth and hospitality. 

Speaking about films that are made in Romania today, he said there is a great deal of variety. While many people talk about the new Romanian cinema or the new wave of Romanian film, he said, it’s not a question of a group of young filmmakers sitting around a table and planning what they will do next month. What I think was an important factor [in this new film wave] was the end of censorship after the fall of the Nicolae Ceausescu regime in 1989, he added.

The program ended with an invitation to the audience to see the other programs dedicated to Romanian cinema during the 7th Morelia International Film Festival.

Translated by Cindy Hawes.