The Curzon Mayfair, which along with the Curzon Soho is a Europa Cinemas theater well known by London cinema lovers, put on a Romanian film festival from 2 to 5 February. Organised in cooperation with the Romanian Cultural Centre in London, the Ratiu Foundation and Bucharest’s National Centre of Cinematography, the festival offered both feature-length and short films by young Romanian directors. In 2005, another network cinema, Le Latina in Paris, also put on a week devoted to contemporary Romanian films.

These events highlight the resurgence of a cinematography we are not accustomed to seeing in the limelight. Mainstream audiences are on the whole still not familiar with films from the 1960s and 1970s, although Lucian Pintilie is a relatively well-known name for European audiences (particularly for Reconstruction, in 1969, or more recently The Oak, NextStop Paradise and Niki and Flo). His films could be rediscovered, along with works by other important filmmakers from the 1960s and 1970s, such as Dan Pita, Mircea Veroiu, Alexandru Tatos and Mircea Daneliuc.

After a difficult patch in the 1980s, Romanian cinema experienced a renaissance in the 1990s, with the advent of filmmakers such as, for example, Radu Mihaileanu (from Betrayal in 1993 to Live and Become in 2005), Nicolae Margineanu (Look Ahead with Anger, in 1993), Nicolae Caranfil (Philanthropy, in 2002), or Titus Munteanu (Taxi or Limousine, in 2003).

The festival at the Curzon Mayfair goes much further, turning the spotlight on a group of filmmakers that seem to form a Romanian New Wave, spearheaded by Ruxandra Zenide and Cristi Puiu, who explore the changes in Romanian society.

Ruxandra Zenide’s first film, Ryna (Switzerland/Romania), has not yet been distributed, but has received several prizes, for example at the Geneva Tout Ecran Festival, the Cottbus Eastern European Film Festival, the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival and at the Bordeaux Cinéma au Féminin Festival.
In her film the young director, who was born in 1975 and has already attracted attention with her short films Dust and Green Oaks, portrays the day-to-day life of a teenage girl who lives with her parents and her grandfather in a small town on the Danube delta. She works for her father, a violent, alcoholic garage mechanic, who cannot stand to see her asserting her femininity. A meeting with a Frenchman passing through helps her to hold her ground, before the threat that is hanging diffusely in the air overwhelms her.
Shot with a hand-held camera yet devoid of brutality, this taut and entirely masterful film looks set to perform well, particularly with teenage audiences.

Perhaps the character of Mr Lazarescu, the anti-hero of Cristi Puiu’s second feature, The Death Of Mister Lazarescu, no longer needs an introduction. The film won awards at numerous festivals, for example from Director’s Fortnight in Cannes, the Alba Regia festival in Hungary and the Transylvanian International Festival; Lazarescu’s decline as he moves from a flat in a suburb of Bucharest to the hospital bed where he will end his days won international critical acclaim with accolades for the film’s black humour, the acting, the humanity of the film’s approach and the incredibly masterful direction of this tableau of a society, which is, perhaps first and foremost Romanian society, yet is also at the same time our society.
However, moving over from the festival circuit to commercial distribution is proving difficult for this masterpiece. The film was released in France on 11 January, after prior releases in Romania, Greece and Austria. Its performance was particularly disappointing during the first week of exhibition (an average of 233 admissions for each of the 30 prints) and the film was removed from a very high number of programming schedules in the second week in the face of tough competition. It is however still showing in 13 film theatres in the week of 22 February, which demonstrates that it has benefited from excellent word-of-mouth and support from exhibitors, which should allow it to bring in over 15,000 admissions. Although the box-office results could be considered disappointing, the film is the first part of the “Six Tales from the Bucharest Suburbs” cycle Cristi Puiu is hoping to shoot and so could enjoy a come-back when the other episodes are released.

The Curzon Mayfair’s programme also included short films by several young directors who have won a series of prizes over the past few years, indicating the emergence of filmmaking styles with the potential to win over European audiences. A particular mention should go to Corneliu Porumboiu (Liviu’s Dream) and to Catalin Mitulescu (Trafic), both of whom won awards in Cannes in 2004. Catalin Mitulescu has furthermore recently received an award at Sundance for his first feature, The Way I Spent The End Of The World , “the story of a seven-year-old boy who saves Romania from dictatorship”. This Franco-Romanian co-production is scheduled for release in French cinemas in the next few months.

Caught between success on the international festival circuit and the difficulties of commercial distribution, young Romanian cinema displays genuine vigour, bearing witness to the potential of the undiscovered filmmaking of this region of Europe.

Jean-Baptiste Selliez



Films programmed at the Curzon Mayfair:

Long Feature Films:
The Italian Girls (Italiencele), by Napoleon Helmis
The Death Of Mister Lazarescu (Moartea domnului Lazarescu), by Cristi Puiu
Ryna, by Ruxandra Zenide

Short Feature Films:
Challenge Day, by Napoleon Helmis
Green Oaks, by Ruxandra Zenide
Liviu’s Dream (Visul lui Liviu) and A Trip to the City (Calatorie la oras), by Corneliu Porumboiu
A Lineman’s Cabin (Canton), by Constantin Popescu
Cigarettes and Coffee (Un cartus de kent si un pachet de cafea), by Cristi Puiu
Trafic, by Catalin Mitulescu

Documentary:
Children of the Decree (Decreteii), by Florian Iepan


Ratiu Foundation and Romanian Cultural Centre in London: 
www.ratiufamilyfoundation.com
Curzon Cinemas:
www.curzoncinemas.com
Romanian National Center of Cinematography:
www.cncinema.abt.ro

The Italian Girls (Italiencele):
www.italiencele.ro

Ryna:
Navarrofilms@neutre.ch
pacific@pacificfilms.ch

The Death of Mister Lazarescu:
www.thecopro.de