Astra Film International Festival: Sibiu, 15-21 October

City of Sibiu hosts, on 15-21 October, the 25th edition of the Astra Film International Festival – with its five competition sections: International, Central and Eastern Europe, Romania, Short Documentaries and DocSchool (Students). The 13 members of the Jury will choose the winners out of 55 titles in competition from 30 countries, selected from over 3,000 submissions from 93 countries. Prizes amount to a total cash value of over 25,000 euros.

Astra Film Festival 2018 is organized by Astra Film – Center for Documentary Film and Visual Education Sibiu, with the support of Sibiu County Council, Ministry of Culture and National Identity, and the Romanian Film Center. Event is co-financed by Sibiu City Council through the Sibiu City Hall and by the European Union, through its Creative Media Program.

Sibiu International Festival Astra Film was launched in 1993 as a groundbreaking project in the Central and Eastern Europe. Its contribution to establishing a framework for the development of documentary cinema in the whole region, and in Romania in particular, has been consequential. It has constantly attracted industry’s attention to the art of non-fiction film by supporting the development of the genre and opening new horizons for the documentarists.

AFF 2018 thematic programs explore family ties, relationships between generations, and the effects on us of time passing by (Motherhood, Beware! Parents Behind the Wheel, Coming of Age, Rites of Passage, Mature View); the difficult exercise in search of personal, national or digital identity (Surviving My Homeland, In Search of HOME, My Origin/Religion & I, Far-right Near Us, #ourlivesonline); and the quest for balance between living our fate and building a destiny (Challenging Fates, Against the Odds, In a Larger View, The Butterfly Effect).

Romania’s Centenary is honored at the Festival by the premiere of the film Road of Kings – Transalpina directed by Dumitru Budrala. Used from ancient times, the road that crosses the Carpathians linking Transylvania and Oltenia is a true depositary of history, where the fantastic, mythological stories and the sublime landscapes accompany you at every step. The Road of Kings was considered an extraordinary technical achievement for those times.

AFF 2018 edition also includes, as special guest screenings, the three finalists productions of the European Parliament’s Lux Film Prize competition, of which the winner of the LUX Prize will be announced on November 14 in Strasbourg: The Other Side of Everything (Serbia, France), directed by Mira Turajlić – also officially selected in the Festival; Styx (Austria), directed by Wolfgang Fischer; Woman at War (Iceland, Ukraine, France), directed by Benedikt Erlingsson.

Astra Film Festival is held under the High Patronage of the President of Romania.

Source:RRA,AFF.Translated by Miruna Matei