ROME – Rome’s audience will once again have the opportunity to engage in a multicultural dialogue and dive into Romania’s fervent social, environmental and political aspects as the ProCult Romania Film Festival opens its ninth edition on Thursday, June 6.

 The four-day festival, which takes place at the Romanian Academy and the Casa del Cinema until Sunday, June 9, will exhibit 14 screenings in the original language with subtitles in Italian. The common denominator of the films exhibited will be the passing of the time lived by the human soul that transforms the past into memory, the future into expectation and the present into intuition.

 ProCult Romania Film Festival is part of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union’s efforts to promote the Romanian culture and creative universe. The festival is organized by the Romanian Embassy to Italy, the Romanian Academy in Rome, the Romanian Cultural Institute and the cultural association ProEvent, with the patronage of Rome’s Department of Cultural Growth, Lazio Region, Representation of the European Commission in Italy, and Sapienza University of Rome.

 The attraction also receives the support of the Ministry for Romanians Abroad, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Casa del Cinema, Zètema Culture Project, Villa Borguese, and Happy Communication, in collaboration with Rai Cinema and 01 Distribution.

 Tickets are free subject to availability.

AGENDA

Thursday, June 6 - at the Romanian Academy (Rome, Piazzale José de San Martin, 1)

18:30 - "Octav" (2017) by Serge Ioan Celebidachi tells the story of an eighty-year-old who, thanks to the collapse of Communism, retook possession of his childhood home. Looking back at his youth, he sought explanations in the past and began a melancholic and Proustian introspective journey. Little did he know an unexpected encounter would change his life.

Friday, June 7 – at Casa del Cinema in Rome (Largo Marcello Mastroianni, 1)

16:30 - Documentary "The indomitable Romania" by Thomas Barton-Humphreys guides the audience through a wild, magical and fragile Romania, host of an immense variety of ecosystems, plants, insects and animals that fight for survival across the four seasons.

18:30 - "Let's go to the next" by Tedy Necula is set on the morning of October 31, 2015 in a wagon stuck in the underground tunnel, following the devastating fire of the club "Colectiv", which caused the death of 64 people.

20:15 - "A step behind the seraphim" by Daniel Sandu is a training novel based on the director's youth experiences. Gabriel, a teenager admitted to an Orthodox theological seminar, soon learns that the "System" is corrupt and understands that lies, theft and psychological manipulation are skills necessary to withstand that environment while trying to keep their humanity intact. Romano Milani, Secretary of the National Syndicate of Italian Film Journalists, will present the film.

Saturday, June 8 - at the Romanian Academy and Casa del Cinema

12:00 - Romanian Academy - "The Moromete family" (1987) classic black and white film by director Stere Gulea, a cinematographic reduction of the eponymous novel of Marin Preda, tells the emblematic story of a Romanian peasant family and its dissolution, against the background of the social changes that precede and follow the II World War.

16:30 - Casa del Cinema - "Charleston" by Andrei Cretulescu presents a bittersweet story of a "posthumous" triangle: at his wedding anniversary night, a new widower is tracked down by his wife's lover who, surprisingly, seeks comfort for the loss of the woman. The film will have English subtitles.

18:30 – Casa del Cinema - "The Moromete family II", second chapter of “The Moromete family”

20:30 – Casa del Cinema - the director Stere Gulea and the actor Horaţiu Mălăele, introduced by the actor Marius Bizau, will meet the public.

21:30 – Casa del Cinema - The theatrical comedy "The secret of happiness" by Vlad Zamfirescu makes the audience reflect on the duration of happiness, which for the protagonists seems to be limited and inevitably based on the unhappiness of someone else.

Sunday, June 9 – Casa del Cinema

15:30 – The confrontation between past and present is the protagonist of four short films:

- "Everything is very far" by Emanuel Pârvu traces the journey of a mother from a small village on the Danube to the great Bucharest on the occasion of the birthday of her eldest son, who will not present himself at the appointment.

- "Miss Sueño" by Radu Potcoavã is also based on a dramatic journey, that of Roxana, who, with the illusion of moving to Madrid to start a new life, will fall into the hands of human traffickers.

- "The years of Saturday night" by Dragos Buliga, pilot episode of a TV series that tells the story of life in a Faculty of Arts in the 1980s. Inspired by the director's university period, the story surprises for the widespread youthful dissent of the last decade of the Communist regime.

- Bogdan Mureşanu's short film "The Christmas present" tells the tragicomic story of a family man - played by actor Adrian Vancica - after discovering that the letter written by his son for Santa contains his greatest wish: the death dictator Ceausescu.

The short film cycle ends with a meeting with actor Adrian Vancica, presented by his colleague Marius Bizau.

17:30 - Comedy "Storia di un perdigiorno" by Paul Negoescu tells the story of an eternal childish man with an imminent paternity that will change his life.

19:30 - "6.9 on the Richter scale" by Nae Caranfil, a film winner of five Gopo Awards that presents a young actor in search of fame, divided between the depressive crises of his wife, a complicated theatrical performance, the obsession with the arrival of a devastating earthquake and the psychological pressures of a selfish priest. Director Nae Caranfil will answer questions from the audience at the end of the screening.

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