When injustice occurs, do you hide in the corner or do you rush to help? Are you able to raise your voice when there is a need to speak up? The Romanian festival One World Romania definitely does not hide in the corner and will speak to viewers across the globe through remarkable documentary films from Monday, March 9 to Sunday, March 15 online at DAFilms.com! Join the Romanian “Kino Maidan” and watch five nominated films for free!
For the eighth time, the international festival One World Romania brings a critical voice as well as a rich film programme to Bucharest. For the third time, you can watch a selection of the best films online. This year, too, we will present films dealing primarily with the questions of democracy, observance of human rights and reflection of various forms of public protests. One of these protests, held at Maidan square in Ukraine, gave the name “Kino Maidan” to this year’s festival edition. As the festival’s director Alexandru Solomon points out in an exclusive interview, the festival celebrates all the Maidans across the world as well as documentary film as one of the best tools to fight injustice.
The five presented films represent five out of ten thematic categories offered by the festival’s eight edition. Under the title “Human versus Nature”, the Bulgarian film VITOSHA mediates a story known to many post-socialist countries. In the film, budding civil activism focuses on the largest national park lying dangerously close both to the capital city of Sofia and to the developers’ interests, with decisions about the latter being made by a closed group of businessmen and politicians without any participation of the society.
The film WAITING FOR AUGUST, which has been very successful on its festival tour so far, represents the documentary section “Coming of Age” dedicated to the theme of the premature maturing of children. The documentary debut by director Teodora Ana Mihai, which has already won the award for the best international feature documentary at Canada’s prestigious Hot Docs, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Astra Film Festival and a special mention at the Doc Alliance Festival Visions du Réel, is a sensitive observation of the protagonist Georgiana who has not turned fifteen yet. After her mother leaves home to work abroad, Georgiana must turn from a teenager into a head of the family taking care of her 6 siblings.
NAKED ISLAND, presented in the category of “Traumas”, observes a family situation as well. To the director, the situation represents a first step on her journey towards learning about the traumatic past of her grandfather who survived Tito’s despotic rule over the territory of Yugoslavia as well as his imprisonment in an island labour camp. The intimate family portrait, expanding into a global account of one of the bloodiest epochs of Yugoslav history, received the Heart of Sarajevo Award at Sarajevo IFF in 2014.
The controversial history of the Balkan Peninsula is also the subject of the fourth documentary THE SERBIAN LAWYER. The film captures the international trial with Yugoslav dictator Radovan Karadžić who is defended by a young idealistic lawyer determined to live up to the main principle of the law; everyone deserves the right to a defence. How will the highly publicized and emotionally charged process steer the future professional career of the protagonist and how will it impact his personal life?
A life turning point is also discussed by the last of the five films OUTSIDE. In the film, director Andrei Schwartz meets the protagonist of his previous film Jailbirds, sentenced to 21 years in prison, for the second time in front of the camera. This time, however, the two men meet in a brand new situation of a free dialogue outside the prison cell; a situation forgotten by one of them for a long time. How will this journey to the world behind bars turn out? Find out more in the unique long-time observational Romanian film!
Join the viewers’ movement Kino Maidan from March 9 to 15 online at DAFilms.com!
The film WAITING FOR AUGUST is available to viewers in Romania only.
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