One World Romania (OWR), the festival covering documentary and human rights films, will showcase at its 16th edition 35 documentary films, three retrospectives, eight talks and workshops, and a related exhibition.

The festival takes place between March 31st and April 9th at Elvire Popesco Cinema, Cinemateca Eforie, Cinema Union, Arcub, and several other venues in Bucharest. It also runs an online edition between April 10th and April 30th.

The theme of this year’s edition, chosen by curators Anca Păunescu and Andrei Tănăsescu, is ‘Good Life’ in a program that contextualizes and questions the way the philosophical concept of good is found under many portraits in contemporary culture and society. The OWR selection team also includes film scholar Liri Chapelan, journalist Sorana Stănescu, and film critic Victor Morozov.

The film selection is divided into five themed sections, reflecting and expanding on the event’s main theme: ‘Good Life’, ‘New Wounds’, ‘Old Scars’, ‘Existing, Resisting’, ‘24/7’ and ‘All that breaths.’ The festival will also run two retrospectives dedicated to directors Jocelyne Saab, one of the most important documentary filmmakers in the Arab world, and to Želimir Žilnik, the ‘rebel’ of Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav film. It will also hold a retrospective celebrating 30 years since the establishment of the Visual Arts Foundation.

Laura Poitras’s All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is the film that will open this year’s edition of OWR. The winner of a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, it follows the life of artist Nan Goldin and her fight for freedom.

More on the program here. Tickets and passes are available at Eventbook.ro.

(Photo: One World Romania Facebook Page)

simona@romania-insider.com