We take a look at this year's crop of events and festivals offering the chance to have an al-fresco movie viewing experience.

The sixth edition of the program Cinevara, dedicated to rare films, focuses this year on exploring the human body as it is presented in the cinema of the socialist period in Central and Eastern Europe. Hosted by Rezidența9, the program also includes a selection of shorts covering the era's health education, work training, sports ads, or ads for various home and hygiene products, which will be screened before the films. The screenings, which run from July 25 to October 3, take place in a silent-cinema format as headphones are available for the public. The program is listed here.

Held at the Masca Theater Amphitheater throughout the summer, CineMasca is a program encompassing 14 films showcasing "theatrical and performative characteristics." Some films are adaptations of theater plays, while others include the day-to-day details of theater companies. The screenings take place on Saturdays. Every member of the public is offered a pair of wireless headphones before the start of the film. More on the program here.

Caro Cultura invites the public throughout the months of July and August to a series of art film screenings held at the terrace La Hamace. Titian, Bernini and Borromini, Vermeer, and Pissarro are some of the artists featured. More on the program here.

Herăstrău Open Air, a project of Happy Cinema, brings outdoor film screenings at the Summer Theater in Bucharest's Herăstrău Park. The program covers Hollywood blockbusters, comedies, thrillers, and more. Details are available here.

TIFF Unlimited Caravan, which has been traveling to cities across Romania for more than ten years, showcases a program of Romanian and European films, recently awarded at festivals but also box-office hits. A project of the largest film festival in the country, Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), it started in 2009 to make up for the lack of cinemas in many cities in the country. This year, from July to October, the caravan has a program that includes films such as Stere Gulea's Moromeții 3, a film that follows the characters penned by Marin Preda; Nasty, the documentary about the Romanian tennis legend Ilie Năstase; Ana Maria Comănescu's teenage road movie Horia; and the comedy Klaus and Barroso. Among the international productions screened are Luc Besson's Dogman, Maxime Govare and Romain Choay's Lucky Winners, Gustav Moller's Sons, and Bertrand Bonello's The Beast.

After stops in Breb, Târgu Lăpuș, and Zabola, the caravan travels to Mediaș (July 26 - 28), at the theater festival Ideo Ideis, Satu Mare (August 9 – 11), Timișoara (August 16 – 18 and September 6 - 8), and Brașov (October 4 – 8). More on the films screened and the cities where the caravan stops here.

Another long-standing project that brings outdoor film screenings is Metropolis Caravan. After a first stop in Tulcea, the caravan is holding a program in Brașov between July 23 and July 28 in the city's Nicolae Titulescu Park. The program includes awarded and critically acclaimed international productions, among them Nikolaj Arcel's The Promised Land, Tran Anh Hung's The Taste of Things, Stéphan Castang's Vincent doit mourir, Levan Akin's Crossing, Alfonso Ruizpalacio's La Cocina, and Mascha Halberstad's Fox & Hare Save the Forest. Access to the screenings is free. More on the program here.

Film în Sat, an event encompassing outdoor film screenings, theater performances, meetings with directors and actors, and workshops, is held in rural communities across the country. This year, it held events in Rășinari (Sibiu) and Întorsura Buzăului (Covasna) and is getting ready for another one in Peștișani (Gorj) between July 30 and August 4. The festival was started by actor Toma Cuzin, known for his roles in Radu Jude's Aferim! or Corneliu Porumboiu's The Treasure, among others. All events in the program, available here, are free entry.

Outdoor screenings are a staple of Anonimul, the festival dedicated to independent film, which built an open-air cinema from scratch in Sfântu Gheorghe (Danube Delta). The festival has two short film competitions dedicated to Romanian and international productions and feature film screenings accompanied by meetings and dialogues between the filmmakers and the audience. More on the program here.

At the seaside, Cinemascop holds its seventh edition between August 1 and August 11 in Eforie Sud, where the Summer Garden hosts film screenings such as Arne Gielen's Together We Cycle, Riccardo Milani's A Different World, Mitja Okorn's Planet of the Lonely, Victor Danell's UFO Sweden, Jean-Baptiste Durand's Bad Dog, Ana Maria Comănescu's Horia, and Sam Mendes's Empire of Light. More on the program here.

Also on the Black Sea coast, in Constanța, Sunscreen brings a mix of outdoor and indoor screenings, cine-concerts, concerts, and meetings with actors and directors. The festival, a project of the team behind TIFF, is scheduled to take place this year between August 29 and September 1. Updates are posted here.

Gaming sessions and film screenings are part of the program of this year's Orange Weekends caravan. The program of film screenings covers Hollywood productions such as Dune 2 and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, as well as the Romanian film Două Lozuri/ Two Lottery Tickets. The latter will run in a version adapted for the visually impaired, who can use the free app Moviereading to follow the film. The caravan will reach Baia Mare between July 25 and July 28, Cluj-Napoca between August 15 and August 18, and Oradea between August 29 and September 1. More on the program here.

In its turn, film caravan Cinemobilul plans to cover 50 localities in the country this year. So far, the event announced screenings of the animation film Wall-Ein Baia Mare (July 28), Satu-Mare (July 29), Carei (July 30), and Salonta (July 31), among others. The free-entry screenings are announced seven to ten days before they happen. Updates are posted here.

(Photo: TIFF Caravan, from TIFF)

simona@romania-insider.com