The European Film Festival will put Ukraine in the spotlight and screen several films by Ukrainian directors at its 26th edition, to take place in Bucharest and Timișoara.

In Bucharest, the event takes place between May 5 and May 11 at Elvire Popesco Cinema and Cinemateca Eforie, while in Timișoara a gala is scheduled for May 10 at Cinema Victoria.

"This year, at the European Film Festival, we rediscover and support a Ukraine that is more European than ever. At the event's opening, we will screen Nosorih / Rhino, the latest film by Oleg Sentsov, a filmmaker who is a symbol of Ukrainian national resistance and an armed defender of besieged Kyiv. Also at the festival, we will decipher the allegory Nomeri / Numbers of the same Sentsov," Cătălin Olaru, the artistic director of the festival's 2022 edition, explained.

The program also includes Kateryna Gornostai's feature Stop-zemlia and Taras Tomenko's documentary Terykony/ Boney Piles, and Masha Kondakova's Inner Wars about "a war in which men have the media monopoly but which is far from belonging exclusively to them."

The public can also see Agnieszka Holland's Mr Jones, about the Holodomor, also known as the Terror-Famine in the early 1930s.

"We will end the festival with an homage: Parthenon, the last film of Mantas Kvedaravicius, the Lithuanian filmmaker fallen on April 2 in the fight for Mariupol," Olaru said.

The complete program will be released next week. Tickets can be purchased at Eventbook.ro or from the two cinema venues.

The European Film Festival is organized by the Romanian Cultural Institute with support from the European Commission Representation in Romania and EUNIC Romania, in partnership with European embassies, centers and cultural institutes. 

(Photo: Festivalul Filmului European Facebook Page)

simona@romania-insider.com