Amid an unexpected amount of uncertainty, as indoor venues in Romania are unlikely to be available during the gathering, the Transilvania International Film Festival (31 July-9 August, Cluj-Napoca) has announced the 12 titles set to compete for the festival’s awards. And one thing is certain: one of them will go home with the top award, the Transilvania Trophy.

Artistic director Mihai Chirilov describes the movies as courageous and diverse, covering genres such as black comedy, thriller, erotic drama and experimental film. “Their common denominator is family dynamics and all the types of crises that are packaged within it,” Chirilov says in a press release. No Romanian films are in this year’s competition, even though the Romanian Days sidebar selection offers a record-breaking number of domestic productions (see the news).

The European productions vying for the Transilvania Trophy are Tim Mielants’ Patrick [+lire aussi :
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interview : Tim Mielants
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interview : Svetla Tsotsorkova
fiche film] (Bulgaria/Qatar); Bartosz Kruhlik’s Supernova [+lire aussi :
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interview : Bartosz Kruhlik
fiche film] (Poland); Jeanette Nordahl’s Wildland [+lire aussi :
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interview : Jeanette Nordahl
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interview : Zoé Wittock
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fiche film] (Greece); and Peter Mackie Burns’ Rialto [+lire aussi :
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interview : Peter Mackie Burns
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The multi-continental competition for the Transilvania Trophy also includes Zheng Lu Xinyuan’s The Cloud in Her Room (China), Nicolás Rincón Gille’s Valley of Souls [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Colombia/Belgium/Brazil/France), Amir Homayoun Ghanizadeh’s A Hairy Tale (Iran), Nigina Sayfullaeva’s Fidelity (Russia) and Shannon Murphy’s Babyteeth (Australia).

The 19th edition of TIFF will kick off on 31 July with a special screening of Nicolas Bedos’ La Belle Époque [+lire aussi :
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interview : Nicolas Bedos
fiche film], which will later be distributed in Romania by Independenţa Film.