Some of the films were finished more than a year ago, but for various reasons (especially those that travelled to festivals) their local premiere was postponed. This is the case for Medal of Honour/Medalia de onoare, by Călin Netzer - awarded with five prizes in Thessaloniki Film Festival (www.filmfestival.gr) last year, which will have its gala premiere in Bucharest on November 12. Other films are brand new, such as Morgen, the first feature of Marian Crişan, awarded with four prizes at the recent edition of Locarno Film Festival (www.pardo.ch).
The list of the autumn premieres also includes Cristi Puiu's Aurora (November 26), Radu Muntean's Tuesday, After Christmas/Marţi, după Crăciun, Andrei Ujică's documentary The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu/Autobiografia lui Nicolae Ceauşescu, Constantin Popescu's The Portrait of a Fighter as a Young Man/Portretul luptătorului la tinereţe, Nap Toader's Wedding in Basarabia/Nuntă în Basarabia and Cornel Gheorghiţă's Europolis.
It is still undecided if Periferic, the first feature of Bogdan George Apetri, will be released in 2010, and if Şerban Marinescu's Tanti will find a distributor. Tudor Giurgiu, the Romanian co-producer together with Libra Film (www.librafilm.net) of The Mission of the Human Ressources Manager by Eran Riklis, told FNE that it is possible that the film will be released in Romania at the end of October.
This autumn will also see the local premiere Federico Bondi's Mar Nero, which was coproduced with the Romanian company HiFilm Productions (www.hifilm.ro) and was awarded at Locarno Film Festival in 2008.
Distributors are not expecting big hits at the box-office. The best placed Romanian film this year is Florin Şerban's If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle/Eu când vreau să fluier, fluier, number 25 in the box-office due to the prizes received at the Berlinale and its contemporary story involving real convicts. It is unlikely that any of the other films being released could beat Şerban's performance which has a strong showing for a Romanian film, with 52,644 tickets sold. The second best local film at the box-office, Sergiu Nicolaescu's Poker, is in 44th place.
Even a strong box-office showin won't lead to bigger production grants from the state. The first grants contest of 2010 announced its winners recently. The general manager of the National Centre for Cinema (www.cncinema.abt.ro), Eugen Şerbănescu, said that despite the fact that there was more money available than the figures announced initially, this increase came from a special fund of the institution, not from the second contest's funds.
