The French Film Festival will hold its 25th edition this summer between July 1 and July 11 in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iaşi, Timişoara, Brașov, Brăila, Constanța, Sfântu Gheorghe, Sibiu and Suceava.

The event, which screens some of the newest French films, will take place both indoor and outdoor, in keeping with current sanitary norms, but also online, for the first time in the festival’s history, the organizers announced.

Part of the program, the Young Talents – Features competition will spotlight the new names of French cinema, with five debut films competing for the Audience Award, consisting of a EUR 1,000 scholarship offered by the French Institute to the director and a support package offered by TV5 Monde to the local distributor of the films.

For the first time, the films in competition will also be available online, on the Elvire Chez Vous platform, between July 5 and July 9, allowing the public to see them and vote for them. 

Among the titles in this section are Charlène Favier’s Slalom and Suzanne Lindon’s Seize Printemps, both included in the Cannes 2020 official selection, and Edouard Bergeon’s Au nom de la terre.

A new section this year is the Young Talents – Shorts competition, where a jury made up of young film critics Flavia Dima, Georgiana Muşat, and Victor Morozov will decide the winner. The award is a creative residence offered as part of the French Institute’s Résidence de Poche program.

The Panorama section, which gathers the recent hits of French cinema awarded at festivals or recognized by the public, will show such films as Albert Dupontel’s Adieu les cons, the grand winner of this year’s César Awards with seven awards, including for best film, and Emmanuel Courcol’s Un Triomphe, named the Comedy of the Year at the European Film Awards 2020.

Another new section is Carte Blanche for five Romanian filmmakers. As part of the section, directors Adina Pintilie, Radu Jude, Cristian Mungiu, Corneliu Porumboiu, and Cristi Puiu will each propose a French film, either a classic one or more recent, that left a strong impression on them. 

Another section of the program, Le Meilleur du FFF, gathers five productions screened at previous editions at the festival and which marked the debut of directors who become established names in the meantime.
The films will be available online, before the festival, on the Elvire Chez Vous platform. The first title to be screened is Rebecca Zlotowski’s Grand Central. The film is available on April 30. Tickets are already on sale at Eventbook.ro.

simona@romania-insider.com