Romanian Film Series Kicks off at JBFC Tonight

Pleasantville's is starting its latest film series tonight, titled “Tales from the Golden Age: New Romanian Cinema.”

The series of Romanian films will run through October 6 and features 13 screenings total from the country's last 10 years of filmmaking.

“When The New York Times film critic, A.O. Scott, was recently asked to cite several foreign virtuoso female performances that Americans are largely unaware of, he instantly reached for the recent cinema of one country: Romania,” said JBFC Programming Director Brian Ackerman in a statement.

According to Ackerman, “Romanian filmmaking has taken off since the fall of communism in 1989. As a country barely emerged from its totalitarian past, on the margins of European awareness, still anxiously poor, and with little infrastructure to support a native film industry, Romania’s rise is a kind of ‘black swan’: a strange, beautiful and unpredicted phenomenon."

Mihai Chirilov, founder and artistic director of Transylvania International Film Festival, will be present for a Q&A after the screening of Tales from the Golden Age tonight, which marks the beginning of the series.

Chirilov is currently JFBC's international programmer-in-residence and will host a Professional Development Panel for programmers of Westchester arts institutions during his residency.

Tales of a Golden Age is a collection of recent short films. It begins at 7 p.m. tonight and lasts 150 minutes.

Other films in the series include The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (October 4), a New York Film Festival selection documentary that will be followed by a Q&A with Director Andrei Ujica and Chirilov; California Dreamin' (October 6), a culture clash of Romania and the United States; as well as featured works of filmmaker Cristi Puiu next weekend, including Stuff and Dough (September 3), The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (October 1) and Aurora (October 2).

See here for more information about the "Tales from the Golden Age: New Romanian Cinema.