Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown and Eva Libertad’s Deaf are among the 12 films selected to play in competition at the Transilvania Internation
Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown and Eva Libertad’s Deaf are among the 12 films selected to play in competition at the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), taking place in Romania from June 13-22.
Films by first and second-time directors are in the running for the €10,000 Transilvania Trophy, while 10 works pushing the boundaries of the documentary form have been selected to screen for the top cash prize of €2,000 in the What’s Up Doc? Doc section.
In addition to the debut films from Danish-Palestinian director and Spain’s Libertad are Corsican filmmaker Julien Colonna’s The Kingdom, and second features including German-Turkish writer-director-producer Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s Hysteria, Dutch filmmaker Peter Hoogendoorn’s Three Days Of Fish and Romanian-born director Noaz Deshe’s Xoftex.
Previous winners of the Transilvania Trophy have included Joachim Trier’s Oslo. 31. August, Anocha Suwichakompong’s Mundane History, and Philipp Yuryev’s The Whaler Boy.
Scroll down for the full lineup
The What’s Up Doc? competition includes Miguel Calderón’s Mexican docu-fiction Loss Adjustment, Courtney Stephen’s 16mm stylised fiction debut Invention, and half -brothers Seth and Peter Scriver’s animated documentary Endless Cookie.
Now in its fourth year as a competitive section, the What’s Up Doc? award was previously presented to Dávid Mikulán and Bálint Révész’s Kix (2024), Theo Montoya’s Anhell69 (2023) and Sebastian Mihailescu’s You Are Ceaușescu To Me.
TIFF’s 24th edition will open on June 13 with an open-air screening of Irish director Brendan Canty’s coming- of -age film Christy. It will feature retrospectives dedicated to the filmmakers Rodrigo Cortés, Rainer Sarnet and Adilkhan Yerzhanov.
In addition, the festival has confirmed that filmmakers Danis Tanovic, Uberto Pasolini, and Pavlo Ostrikov are among the international guests who will be coming to Cluj-Napoca to present their latest films to TIFF audiences.
“Completely unintended, but highly plausible considering the chaos of our times, th competition films form a strange yet fascinating Babel,” said TIFF’s artistic director Mihai Chirilov. “Where people don’t understand each other and are at odds with the world. In the absence of a better, more conciliatory reality, art remains the only force that can positively transform this chronic lack of communication, empathy, and authenticity into something meaningful.”
TIFF Official Competition 2025
To A Land Unknown, dir. Mahdi Fleifel
Xoftex, dir. Noaz Deshe –
Peacock, dir. Bernhard Wenger
The Kingdom, dir. Julien Colonna
Three Days Of Fish, dir. Peter Hoogendoorn
Deaf, dir. Eva Libertad
Acts Of Love, dir. Jeppe Rønde
Rains Over Babel, dir. Gala del Sol
Hysteria, dir. Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay
The Weeping Walk, dir. Dimitri Verhulst
Myocardium, dir. José Manuel Carrasco
Debut, Or Objects Of The Field of Debris, As Currently Catalogued, dir. Julian Castronovo
What’s Up, Doc? 2025
Mistress Dispeller, dir. Elizabeth Lo
Letters From Wolf Street, dir. Arjun Talwar
Endless Cookie, dir. Seth & Peter Scriver
Loss Adjustment, dir. Miguel Calderón
Invention dir. Courtney Stephens
The Flamenco Guitar Of Yerai Cortes, dir. Antón Álvarez
Saturn, dir. Daniel Tornero
The Return Of The Projectionist, dir. Orkhan Aghazadeh
ILOVERUSS, dir. Tova Mozard
Make It Look Real, dir. Danial Shah
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