This year’s Oscar-winning films in national premiere at the
American Independent Film Festival .7
Tickets are now on sale!
WOMEN TALKING, Sarah Polley’s newest film which won this year’s Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and THE WHALE, winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Brendan Fraser’s performance, will premiere in Romania at the 7th American Independent Film Festival, to be held in Bucharest at Cinema Elvire Popesco and Cinemateca Eforie from April 21st-24th.
Tickets are now available on Eventbook.ro:
As in the past, AIFF also aims to bring social or humanitarian issues to the public’s attention, whose solution depends on community involvement, and urges viewers to support these causes by participating in organised discussions and purchasing tickets to festival screenings. All proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to support the cause in question, and this year AIFF is raising the issue with ARCA – Animal Rescue and Care, Animals International and BRUNO Shelter Association, whose missions are the banning of live animal transport.
By attending a screening at the festival, you can help support those involved in tackling this issue as well as watch award-winning films from the world’s leading Official Selections, starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Frances McDormand and Joaquin Phoenix, in a selection of indie films in national premiere.
An ingenious adaptation of the novel written by Miriam Toews, WOMEN TALKING begins with the statement, “What follows is an act of female imagination.” The phrase, taken directly from Toews, was used by the elders of an isolated religious colony in an attempt to explain years of sexual assaults – attributed to ghosts, demons and even hysteria (“wild female imagination”) that left women and girls terrorised, pregnant or dead. When the attackers are finally caught and arrested “for their own protection”, women have a brief window in which to imagine their future. Should they stay in the community that abused them or leave, breaking away from the Garden of Eden, alienated from the God they still continue to believe in?
The film that stars Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Carol, Her), Claire Foy (The Crown), Jessie Buckley (Fargo, Judy) and Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Nomadland, The French Dispatch) “is at once chilling, thrilling, unnerving and inspiring,” notes The New Yorker, and “achieves something extraordinary: as the characters talk to each other, they speak directly to the viewer, and the barn is at once a metaphor for the whole world and the physical location in which these women find themselves on the brink of change” as the Financial Times notes.
Directed by Darren Aronofsky – who known to audiences for Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan and the more recent Mother! with a “remarkable Brendan Fraser in a twisted drama of self-destruction” (The Guardian), THE WHALE tells the story of a rather isolated, morbidly obese English teacher who tries, somewhat belatedly, to reconnect with his teenage daughter.
“Aronofsky challenges us to see beyond our pre-programmed prejudices and ideas of attraction to find beauty in the central character, in the warm, enveloping melody of his voice, in his poetic and passionate soul. But at the same time, it films him in a way that emphasises the undignified state of his life that unfolds almost entirely on the couch,” The Guardian continues.
The much acclaimed master of the horror genre, Ari Aster, returns with his third feature film, BEAU IS AFRAID, following his stunning successes Hereditary and Midsommar. The director and screenwriter announced his upcoming collaboration with Joaquin Phoenix in 2021, with BEAU IS AFRAID billed at the time as an “intimate portrait – spanning decades – of one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time,” with Phoenix – a former American Independent Film Festival special guest – in the lead role.
Described by Aster as a “nightmarish comedy” that had to be altered from an original four-hour script, BEAU IS AFRAID is the story of a gentle but anxiety-ridden man who is forced to face his darkest fears once he embarks on an odyssey back home following the sudden death of his mother. A “dizzying and haunting journey that lingers in your mind” – Screen Rant.
POLITE SOCIETY, the debut feature from director Nida Manzoor, creator of the acclaimed TV series We Are Lady Parts, is “the kind of extremely bold production that shows a rising talent eager to throw more ideas into the cinematic mix,” headlined The Hollywood Reporter after its world premiere at Sundance.
Obsessed with martial arts, Ria Khan is convinced she must save her older sister, Lena, from imminent marriage. After enlisting the help of her friends, Ria puts into action the most ambitious plan ever created to hijack a wedding, all in the name of independence and sisterly bonding.
FUNNY PAGES is a frothy comedy that follows the story of a teenage illustrator who abandons the comforts of his neighborhood life in a twisted search for self.
As a child, Owen Kline played Jesse Eisenberg’s younger brother in The Squid and the Whale about a New York family devastated by their parents’ divorce. Kline played a troubled 12-year-old at the time who takes his mother’s side and has developed a habit of secretly masturbating in public as an emotional response to the trauma he is going through. His Caméra d’Or-nominated directorial debut which premiered at Cannes 2022 “presents many of the same unhealthy themes in a truly bizarre, even surprising, indistinctly funny indie film,” The Guardian stated, amused.
Lawrence Kweller, a 17-year-old with few aspirations but a passion for movies, takes a job at a video rental store where he begins a complicated relationship with his older boss. I LIKE MOVIES is “fresh, enjoyable, engaging; a gentle, well-balanced coming-of-age” it’s “the kind of film that can make even a cynical critic like movies again” concluded IndieWire about director Chandler Levack’s feature debut after the Toronto IFF screening.
As of today tickets for AIFF.7 can be purchased at: https://bit.ly/BileteAIFF7, each of which comes with a Voyo voucher this year. Spectators are urged to support this year’s festival cause by purchasing tickets or donating directly to the three organisations.
Romania is one of Europe’s largest exporters of live animals. Every year, hundreds of thousands of non-human animals, especially sheep, are crammed onto ships and transported in conditions that are hard to imagine, especially to the Middle East and Africa. A few months ago the horrific images of more than 14 000 dead sheep in the port of Midia went around the world, with international animal welfare groups blaming overloading of the ship. Although there are national and international regulations on such situations, there are still many mechanisms that need to be perfected, failing which such situations can be repeated, subjecting hundreds of thousands more animals to prolonged and unnecessary suffering. The European Union recommended last summer that Romania ban the export of live animals after a cargo ship set sail with thousands of sheep on board for the Persian Gulf in August in the infernal heat. Hundreds of animals died en route, say Animals International representatives.
AIFF invites the public to an OPEN TALK: BAN LIVE ANIMAL EXPORT aimed at drawing attention to this topic, informing but also debating possible solutions to the situation. Gabriel Păun – activist and initiator of the #SaveMiorița campaign to ban the transport of live animals, through Animals International, Ovidiu Roșu – veterinarian involved in the Midia case and Mihai Dragolea – documentary filmmaker, who has investigated environmental issues and is currently working for a community dog shelter, will participate in the discussion that will take place at Cinema Elvire Popesco on Sunday, April 23, at 18:30.
The American Independent Film Festival returns to Cluj-Napoca this year, from April 21st-23rd with screenings at Cinema Arta and Cinema Victoria, a local edition presented by Fortech, a GlobalLogic Company.
Organised by Asociația Cinemascop, AIFF.7 is a cultural project financed by the Ministry of Culture.
With the support of: Banca Transilvania, The Embassy of the United States of America*, The Romanian Cultural Institute, Dacin Sara.
Partners: French Institute in Romania, Cinema Elvire Popesco, National Film Archive, Cinemateca Română, Europa Cinemas, Eventbook, Retromobil Club România.
Main Media Partners: PRO TV, Radio Guerrilla, AGERPRES.
Media Partners: Zile și Nopți, Cinemap, Vice, Igloo, Films in Frame, Urban.ro, Ziarul Metropolis, Film Menu, IQ Ads, Smark, Observator Cultural, LiterNet, MovieNews, Cinefilia, CineFan, AARC – All About Romanian Cinema, Munteanu, CineGhid, Radio România Cultural, Business Review.
*This project is funded in part by a grant from the US Department of State. The opinions, findings and conclusions presented during the project are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. State Department.
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