Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) president and filmmaker Tudor Giurgiu has reflected on the Romanian event’s role as a “hub for d
Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) president and filmmaker Tudor Giurgiu has reflected on the Romanian event’s role as a “hub for discovering films and new voices”.
“At TIFF, it’s not just about rolling out red carpets for big stars and VIPs,” Giurgiu said in an interview with Screen on the final day of this year’s edition, which ran from June 13-22.
He cited the festival’s ability to introduce Romanian audiences to the work of Spain’s Rodrigo Cortés and Kazakh director Adilkhan Yerzhanov “who were totally under the radar here” before the festival.
The two were featured alongside the Estonian director Rainer Sarnet in the festival’s 3 x 3 retrospective showcase. This saw three films presented from Cortés’ body of work including his 2024 film Escape, while the spotlight on Yerzhanov featured his 2020 film Yellow Cat as well as his latest feature Cadet.
The festival shone a lithe on emerging talents in the Romanian film scene through the three programmes of shorts in the Romanian Film Days programme. This included films such as Dance, Queen by Maria Mitulescu and Alisveris by Vasile Todinca.
“A festival this size can also offer the opportunity for dialogue between filmmakers and the audience as well as informal industry gatherings and I felt we had reached the right size to have these encounters this year. We are not wanting to be too big or too formal,” said Giurgiu.
Giurgui’s own film as director, The Spruce Forest, had its world premiere in the Romanian Film Days programme.
He said the festival had full houses for masterclasses by Béla Tarr and Maria de Medeiros, while 2,800 people attended Unirii Square for a sold-out screening of Paolo Genovese’s Madly.
Giurgiu said he had been worried that Romania’s economic climate meant the festival “would not get the same number of spectators because we had put up the ticket prices slightly this year”. The regular ticket price for one screening this year was 28 lei (€5.56) and 25 lei (€4.97) for a matinee screening between 9am and 2pm.
“In addition, Cluj is a city with lots of festivals with two big music festivals [Jazz in the Park and Electric Castle headlined by Justin Timberlake] now coming after TIFF, so people might be looking more carefully at their budgets. But the attendance is around the same as last year.”
Although final attendance figures are yet to be calculated, TIFF’s organisers expect the 24th edition to have also posted more than 100,000 spectators over its 10 days.
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