Triangle of Sadness, Palme d’Or 2022, premieres at
Les Films de Cannes à Cluj-Napoca
The 6th edition will take place between October 21st – 23rd at Cinema Victoria and Cinema Arta
The Les Films de Cannes festival returns to Cluj this year with a new selection of films from Cannes and the world’s leading festivals. The 6th edition of Les Films de Cannes à Cluj-Napoca will take place from October 21st to 23rd at Cinema Victoria and, for the first time, at Cinema Arta. The event is supported by Iulius Mall Cluj.
Year after year, the festival continues to bring together the best of international cinema and stimulate national cinema. The tone is set at Cannes where there are no weak years, but fabulous years and great ones. The world’s biggest film festival has managed, over the past 75 years, to put together an incredible selection from all genres and all corners of the world that surprises and entices audiences. Cannes is that filmgoers’ Mecca where you go to recharge your batteries and rebuild your faith in cinema, even (or especially) when the usual silver screen offerings let you down. So don’t worry, and this year’s selection at Les Films de Cannes is a truly provoking one.
With each passing year, the festival has become more ambitious and more adventurous, because nothing is more powerful than the moving image. “I became interested in filmmaking because the image is very, very powerful when it comes to changing human behaviour,” said Swedish director Ruben Östlund, winner of the Palme d’Or in 2022 for yet another caustic, unclassifiable masterpiece that will premiere at Les Films de Cannes à Cluj-Napoca.
Triangle of Sadness – Palme d’Or, Cannes 2022
In the very amusing Triangle of Sadness, distributed in Romania by Independența Film, winner of the supreme trophy at Cannes, the social hierarchy is overturned, revealing the distasteful relationship between power and beauty. A famous model couple, Carl (Harris Dickinson) and his girlfriend, Yaya (Charlbi Dean), are invited on a luxury cruise for the very wealthy, led by a rakish sea captain (Woody Harrelson). What at first seems Instagrammable ends catastrophically, leaving the survivors stranded on a deserted island and fighting for survival. This modern fable about rights and power dynamics is also a strong contender for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. In Cannes, Triangle of Sadness was one of the most talked about films of the festival. Östlund here navigates new waters, delivering a provocative, grotesque and biting satire about the eternal class struggle.
“Utterly unhinged in the best way possible, guaranteed to elicit enough laughter to make your stomach ache, while also leaving you with plenty to think about afterwards” – Alysha Prasad for Room with a View.
Boy from Heaven – Best Screenplay, Cannes 2022
Saleh’s background was crucial to the making of Boy from Heaven, he told Cannes press: “I think there’s a reason why a lot of directors have immigrant backgrounds, like Francis Ford Coppola and Miloš Forman. You’re positioned inside and outside of something. In a way, this is the role of the director… to see the similarities as well as the differences.” Boy from Heaven is a dark thriller set in Cairo about an impoverished boy who wins a scholarship to the prestigious Al-Azhar University, where he finds himself drawn into a brutal power struggle between Egypt’s religious and political elites. Being an outsider was crucial, Saleh said. “No one had ever entered Al-Azhar University with a camera before. An Egyptian filmmaker would go to jail if he did,” he told AFP. A former graffiti artist, Saleh grew up with a filmmaker father and worked in his film studio before attending an art school in Alexandria. As well as directing episodes of cult series Westworld and Ray Donovan, his 2017 film The Nile Hilton Incident, also set in Cairo, won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.
Metronom – Premiul pentru regie, Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2022
In 1972, while Țiriac and Năstase play the Davis Cup Final against America, two high school students fall in love and write letters to Radio Free Europe’s Metronom show. When the young man gets the go-ahead to leave the country for good with his family, the two lovers know they have to part ways, but don’t expect that their last days together are set to become decisive for their entire lives.
Metronom, Alexandru Belc’s feature film debut, won the Best Director Award in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes to a standing ovation from audiences and critics. “This slow, stylish, richly imagined feature debut is much more than a Romanian riff on Romeo and Juliet,” writes the prestigious trade Variety, while Screen International describes it as “a compelling snapshot of adolescents on the cusp of adulthood, whose struggle to find their voice is made impossible by the authorities — everyone from concerned parents to the secret police — breathing down their neck.” The Clappers even call it “one of the best films of the year” due to it “resoundingly stunning craft and empathetic emotional journey,” while Disappointment Media assures us it’s “not a film we’ll soon forget.”
Metronom is distributed by Strada Film International and will premiere in cinemas on the 4th of Noember.
R.M.N. – In Competition, Cannes 2022
Cristian Mungiu returned to competition in Cannes this year with his latest film, and the press did not hold back in its praise: “R.M.N. is a fascinating, very human exploration of the many problems faced by Romania” wrote The Hollywood Reporter after the screening on the Croisette. “Discrete scenes of astonishing clarity and density, with the rigor of their construction belied by the spontaneity of their presentation,” it is “a complex film, so replete with ideas that one might expect the aesthetics to be of lesser concern, but R.M.N. is almost absurdly handsome,” headlined Variety.
A few days before Christmas, having quit his job in Germany, Matthias returns to his multi-ethnic Transylvanian village. He wishes to involve himself more in the education of his son, Rudi, left for too long in the care of his mother, Ana, and to rid the boy of the unresolved fears that have taken hold of him. He’s preoccupied with his old father, Otto, and also eager to see his ex-lover, Csilla. When a few new workers are hired at the small factory that Csilla manages, the peace of the community is disturbed, underlying fears grip the adults, and frustrations, conflicts and passions erupt through the thin veneer of apparent understanding.
A story about the deep springs of human behaviour in the face of startling realities, about relating to each other and how we all relate today to an unsettling future.
After its premiere in Cannes, R.M.N. was selected for major international film festivals such as Toronto, San Sebastian, New York, and has been sold in over 50 countries. The film will be distributed this autumn in France (October 19th) and Belgium.
Un beau matin – Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, Cannes 2022
Sandra is a young mother raising her daughter alone. The biggest challenge in her family’s life is the treatment of Sandra’s father, Georg, who suffers from a degenerative disease. But then Sandra meets Clément, an old friend she hasn’t seen for a long time, and although he is in a steady relationship, a romance develops between the two.
Cannes veteran Mia Hansen-Løve returns with a film that quietly but deeply imprints itself on your soul. “Seydoux’s performance anchors the film, ultimately rendering it a love letter to the present, and to the ways heartbreak and hope intertwine,” was the Vox verdict at Cannes. “Hansen-Løve’s story is deceptively simple, but it packs a powerful emotional punch as it explores the impact that love – and our separation from that love – can have on a person,” wrote Collider about the film, which is distributed in Romania by Voodoo Films.
Flee – Official Selection, Cannes 2020
Because it depicts the refugee experience through vivid animation, Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s FLEE pushes the boundaries of documentary to present a journey of self-discovery. The reason it was nominated for an Oscar for best documentary is, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, that it achieves a remarkable feat: “it tackles a difficult subject and tells it in a very compelling way”. “Sometimes a film is so powerful, you find yourself telling everyone to go and see it. That’s exactly what I felt like doing after screening Flee,” writes the Jerusalem Post. The film was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture and Best Animation.
The film, distributed in Romania by Voodoo Films, was included in the official selection of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, but was not shown due to the pandemic. It was first shown on a cinema screen at Sundance, where it won the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Documentary Section, and in 2022 it was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Documentary, Best Animation and Best International Film.
Via the www.filmedefestival.ro website, you can find more information about the films, program details, as well as ticketing information in the two locations this year. Supplimentary information will be published on the Cinema Victoria and Cinema Arta Facebook pages.
Les Films de Cannes à Cluj-Napoca is prezented by Orange România, traditional partner of the event.
Inspired by: UniCredit Bank
With the support of: Iulius Mall, Groupama, Sun Wave Pharma, Catena
Cultural project financed by: The Romanian Film Centre, SACD / Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques, La Copie Privée, Europa Cinemas
Partners: Cinema Victoria, Cinema Arta, Daisler Print House, Bookstory, Green Room, Leonidas, Demmers
Local media partners: Media 9, TransTelex, Szabadság, Maszol, Cluj24, Krónika, Filmtett, EBS Radio, Paprika Radio, Cluj.com
Main national media partners: Radio Guerrilla, TVR, Agerpres
Organised by: Asociația Cinemascop and Voodoo Films
