The official program of the festival includes four competition sections and a series of curatorial sections and thematic programs and will take place in two stages.
The first stage will be between 27 August and 12 September, with a week of outdoor screenings in unique, amazing venues, followed by a second week of online screenings and events and the industry program Astra Film DokTank.
Astra Film Junior will be taking place from 11th to 16th of October. Astra Film Junior is the film literacy part of the Astra Film Festival, dedicated to children and young adults with the aim to bring young audiences in contact with national and international documentary cinema as a resource of knowledge and understanding of contemporary realities. In 11 years since its inception, AF Junior has brought to the cinema almost a quarter of a million young spectators, being unique among documentary cinema programs for children and young adults in Europe.
Astra Film Festival came into being in 1993 and it takes pride in having established a consequential framework for the development of documentary cinema in Central & Eastern Europe and in having reinforced a platform for emerging filmmakers in Romania and in the entire region by providing networking opportunities as well as national and international visibility for their work.
“The 2021 edition will continue to explore the new climate in which cultural events take place, as we did last year, when we practically reinvented the festival and found new ways to reach our loyal audience and attract new audiences.Such were, for example, the projections on a screen placed between windmills, viewed from boats floating on the lake, in the middle of the miraculous Astra Museum.This year, we will come back with new surprises, in an edition that will take place both outdoors and online, together with the long-awaited Astra Film Junior event, which we will be happy to resume ", said Dumitru Budrala, Director of the Astra Film Festival.
Competition sections:
New Voices of Documentary Cinema
Eligible films are feature length documentaries (longer than 50 min.) completed after 01.01.2020, which are the first, second or max. the third work by filmmakers at the start of their careers;
Central and Eastern Europe
Eligible films are feature length documentaries (longer than 50 min.) completed after 01.01.2020, dealing with issues that are particular to the Eastern (ex-Soviet) Bloc;
Romania Open
Eligible films must be completed after 01.01.2020 and must be Romanian and international productions / co-productions with an original and creative approach of themes and/or subjects in connection with Romanian issues;
DocSchool
Eligible films must be completed after 01.01.2020, produced / co-produced by a film school or film studies program.
Submissions are open until 15th of April.
Additional information and the online entry form can be accessed here: https://2021.astrafilm.ro/.
In addition to the competition sections, the official program includes a series of curatorial selections, thematic sections, and special programs.
The international juries that will decide the prizes of the competition sections are composed of respected specialists and professionals from the international film industry and from the academic world. The finalists are nominated for the following awards:
- New Voices Award (international documentaries, feature length);
- Best Central & Eastern European Doc (documentaries produced by and/or on Central & Eastern European contemporary issues, feature length);
- Best Romanian Doc (Romanian productions / co-productions);
- Best film in the DocSchool Competition (film school productions).
The official selection will be published on the Festival's website (www.astrafilm.ro), and the authors of the selected films will be invited to attend the festival for discussions with the public and other events related to the films featured in the official selection.
The Astra Film Festival, organized with no interruptions for the public since 1993, is placed under the High Patronage of the President of Romania and is organized by Astra Film, CNM Astra and Astra Film Foundation, with the support of Sibiu County Council, The Ministry of Culture, The National Centre of Cinematography, The Consulate of the Federal Republic of Germany in Sibiu and The Union of Filmmakers. The event is co-financed by the Sibiu Local Council through the City Hall of Sibiu and by the European Union through the Creative Europe Program.
Depending on the COVID-19 regulations that will be in force during the announced period, the program may be modified.
