Nearly thirty years after Walter Salles received the Golden Bear in Berlin for Central Station (1996), starring Fernanda Montenegro, the director won the Oscar for Best International Feature with I Am Still Here, featuring her daughter, Fernanda Torres, in the lead role. Torres, who also won a Golden Globe for her performance, delivers a profoundly powerful portrayal of Eunice...
This year's edition reaffirms the vitality and diversity of local cinema, bringing fresh voices and creative visions to the forefront. Regardless of the winners, tonight we celebrate Cluj film and the community that supports it. The jury for this edition – actress Nicoleta Hâncu, producer Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan, and director Florin Șerban – do not have an easy task ahead. Th...
The Return, directed by Italian filmmaker Uberto Pasolini, offers a new perspective on Homer’s Odyssey by reimagining its final chapter. The film opens with Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes) returning home to the island of Ithaca. The Trojan War is over, and for years, Penelope (Juliette Binoche) has been rejecting suitors hungry for wealth and power, clinging to the hope that her hu...
Escape marks Rodrigo Cortés’ return to Spanish cinema, with none other than Martin Scorsese—one of the most influential filmmakers in Cortés’ career—on board as executive producer. Rodrigo Cortés, one of the most prominent and daring Spanish directors of the moment, comes to this year’s TIFF with three intense and thought-provoking films: The Contestant (2007), Buried (2010)...
After an accident that makes him question his right to freedom, N. struggles desperately to get himself into prison. However, the punishment he longs for doesn’t work out the way he imagined. N. (Mario Casas) is grieving the loss of his wife, who was killed in a car accident for which he feels directly responsible. After several failed attempts to end up in prison, he finall...
As every year, JTI brings dance to the Transilvania International Film Festival (June 13–22, 2025) with events dedicated to and inspired by dance. On June 16, at 6:30 PM, a special screening of the film Boléro (directed by Anne Fontaine) will take place at the Student Culture House, marking the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth. The film tells the story behind Ravel...
Blending kitsch, kung-fu, and devout charisma, The Invisible Fight is a test of faith served with a heavy dose of humor—for both its protagonist and any audience rooted in the Christian Orthodox world. Rainer Sarnet’s latest film is a lot of things. It’s wuxia. It’s Soviet kitsch. It’s Bruce Lee, and Tarantino, and B-movie, and maximalism, and a bit of Wes Anderson. It’s rel...
We’re in the heart of the Castle Weekend! TIFF once again invites audiences today to the Bánffy Castle in Bonțida, with a program that includes a concert by psychedelic punk rock band Vágtázó Halottkémek (VHK) at 7:30 PM, followed by the screening of the Estonian film The Invisible Fight at 9:30 PM. In an interview with Louisa Miclăuș, Andor, a young VHK fan, tells AperiTIFF ho...
Adapting novels, folklore, and religious self-help for the big screen with irony and personal flair, Rainer Sarnet is a director in constant search of new formulas—from modernization, to horror, to kung fu monks. Each time stranger, each time endlessly captivating. A common criticism aimed at directors who achieve the status of auteur is that they become complacent, endlessl...
Saturday Night at Bánffy Castle: The KVB Concert and a Midnight Dive into Cult Cinema with The Rocky Horror Picture Show On Saturday evening, starting at 7:30 PM, the stage at Bánffy Castle will be taken over by the British post-punk duo The KVB. Composed of Nicholas Wood and Kat Day, the band merges classic alternative rock with contemporary darkwave and electronic influenc...
Fresh off the plane to Romania, Oscar-winning director Danis Tanović sat down with me to talk about his latest film, My Late Summer, the project he's currently working on, the artist's role in the world, and his concerns about the direction this world is heading. Q: Hello, Mr. Tanović, it’s a pleasure to see you! I’ll get straight to it. You’ve mentioned in past interviews...
We spend so much time on social media that we’ve started to feel like these platforms have always existed. But Facebook only appeared 20 years ago. TikTok, just nine. Most millennials remember exactly when they created their first account. But Gen Z and the generations after them have a vastly different perspective: they’ve never known a life without it. In the five-episode...
Under the ominous shadow of AI, Mihai Chirilov spoke about the difficulty of curating this year’s selection, the films that fueled his optimism, and how a festival can bring together heterogeneous audiences. This year, TIFF asks itself and the public whether the future looks bright, considering the present is, at best, uncertain. We’re living through political uncertainty, a...