Access to the 200 Astra Film Festival cinematographic events will be made according to the regulations in force on September 5th, 2021, the beginning date of the festival, in compliance with all sanitary and hygiene norms.
The film opening of the festival (`Now You Know`, France - 2021, directed by Emmanuel Cappelin - National Premiere) starts from the premise that climate change will bring the world to collapse. There is no question of whether it will happen and not even of when it will happen. It is a film that has all the chances to change our opinion about the future of humanity.
`We are a few days after the devastating IPCC Report, called the "Red Code for Humanity", and we must not pretend everything is fine. Everything is not fine. No matter how harsh the conclusions of this report are and how shocking the films with this theme screened at AFF Sibiu will be for many people, it is important to know what is happening. And after that, maybe we'll be a little wiser. Maybe there are other solutions that depend on us`, said Dumitru Budrala, founding director of the Astra Film Festival.
A very delicate topic, approached by several films in the AFF Sibiu programme, refers to the impact that artificial procreation has on those involved in the process. Artificial insemination has become common nowadays, but that does not mean that the ethical, moral, emotional implications cannot be disruptive. One example is a film about the real case of a famous doctor in the '70s and' 80s, when things were not regulated as they are now. Dr. Karbaat inseminated more than 65 women with his own sperm. Today, many adults everywhere have found out that they have dozens of brothers and sisters they had no idea about, and mothers recount the abuses they have been subjected to (`Seeds of Deceit`, The Netherlands - 2021, directed by Miriam Guttman - International Premiere).
There are also several films that scrutinize couples' intimacy and try to answer questions about the ingredients of a fulfilled married life (`Between Us`, Poland, 2021, directed by Dorota Proba - National Premiere). Or, another example might be about how an absolutely unexpected relationship begins between two Catholic nuns from different monasteries who fall in love, retire from the church world and go to an island to live together (`Nun of Your Business`, Serbia, Croatia - 2021, directed by Ivana Marinić Kragić - National Premiere). Or maybe how a relationship that seems to last, transforms when each of the partners discovers completely different political or religious beliefs (`Radiography of a Family`, Iran, Switzerland, Norway - 2021, directed by Firouzeh Khosrovani - National Premiere).
Another profound question: Where does individualism lead us? A simple answer: To loneliness and dramas consumed to the end in the silence of loneliness. The film `Kodokushi` (Turkey - 2021, directed by Ansar Altay - European Premiere) shows how the phenomenon of people who die alone in Japan is managed. Another film, `Post Mortem Berlin` (Germany - 2021, directed by An-ton von Heiseler - National Premiere) shows how far a crematorium in Berlin has gone, that they use robots to take coffins on the final road, in a dehumanizing industrial space. Also from the same delicate area is the subject of a film (`I’ll stand by you" - Italy, Switzerland, Lithuania - 2021, directed by Virginija Vareikyte, Maximilien Dejoie - National Premiere), which follows the activity of a team of two women, a police officer and a psychologist, from a Lithuanian town with a record-breaking suicide rate year after year.
There will also be films that address the issue of borders, meaning conventional borders, which can dig deep wounds and create dramatic situations for people who have been unlucky enough to remain on the wrong side of the line. In "Where the World Ends" (Belgium, Croatia, Lithuania, Norway - 2021, directed by Anna Savchenko - World Premiere) we find shocking stories from the border between Lithuania and Belarus. Once upon a time there was a fluid border between two Soviet countries, and now it separates communities, families, and lives, because some had the misfortune to have the border drawn at the bottom of their garden, trapping them inside a dictatorship, while relatives and neighbours live in the free world. But we, as Romanians, also had shocking stories on the `Border of Death` (Romania - 2021, directed by Cătălin Apostol): the barbed wire fence was guarded by border guards trained to machine-gun any attempt to escape to freedom.
Other films from the official selection of the Astra Film Festival Sibiu present incredible stories and remarkable network portraits of people who had remained unknown until they were discovered by documentary filmmakers.
The complete program of the Astra Film Festival Sibiu: https://bit.ly/3kvT7G9
Tickets can be purchased from Eventbook: https://eventbook.ro/festival/astra-film-festival
The 28th edition of the Astra Film Festival - the International Documentary Film Festival in Sibiu celebrates life, in all its diversity through the over 200 cinematographic events. Launched in 1993 as an innovative project in Central and Eastern Europe, the Astra Film Festival stands out as an essential event in the European documentary film community, proving to be the most important festival of its kind in Romania, summing up a culture and a history of documentary cinema for decades.
Organised by: Astra Film, CNM Astra and the Astra Film Foundation
With the support of: The Sibiu County Council, The Ministry of Culture, The National
Center of Cinematography, The Consulate of the Federal Republic of Germany in Sibiu, The
Austrian Cultural Forum, The Filmmakers Union.
Cofinanced by The Local Council of Sibiu through the Sibiu Town Hall and the European Union through the Creative Europe Programme.
Astra Film Festival se desfășoară sub Înaltul Patronaj al Președintelui României.
Sponsors: HBO, DPD România, Materom Autohaus, Cinelab, Ursus, Nod Pub, The Refresh, Kulinarium, Sonne Restaurant Cafe
Media Partners: TV5 Monde, Rock FM, Radio România Cultural, RFI România, Hotnews, News.ro, Newsweek, Spotmedia, Scena9, Avantaje, Liternet, Cineuropa, Film New Europe, Movienews, All About Romanian Cinema, Films in frame, Urban,ro, Turnul sfatului, Sibiu 100%, Tribuna, Ora de Sibiu, Știri de Sibiu, Capital cultural, Zile și nopți, Revista Transilvania, Hermanstaedter Zeitung
Communication Partner: PiArt Vision
