Cluj, June 6, 2013 – MAKING WAVES, the leading festival dedicated to Romanian cinema in the U.S., returns this December to the Film Society of Lincoln Center and expands to the Jacob Burns Film Center, under the leadership of the Romanian Film Initiative (RFI). But before that, RFI makes a stop in Cluj during TIFF, a longtime festival partner, to present the festival and to launch on June 6th a crowdfunding campaign, inviting Romanian film fans from all over the world to join in supporting the continuation and growth of this independent festival.

A similar campaign was successfully held last year, when the festival turned independent. In collaboration with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Romanian Film Initiative undertook to fundraise and organize the festival, preserving its critical and creative spirit. In a very short period of time the initiative garnered the support of foundations, sponsors, and over 300 supporters, making the festival the first large Romanian event to have been produced through crowdfunding. Over 3000 spectators attended the 26 screenings and special events, joined by 16 festival guests.

RFI continues and expands the Romanian film festival in 2013, aiming to make its 8th edition bigger and better. Making Waves 2013, to take place at the beginning of December, will continue the leading partnership with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, bringing new releases, talented artists, hot debates, consistent retrospectives, rare classics from Romania to the heart of New York City. For the first time, it will also travel the festival programming outside of New York, to the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY.

Please join the festival campaign by supporting and spreading the word at:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/1715064836/making-waves-2013-romanian-film-fest-continues-and.
No amount is too small. Numerous rewards are offered for those intent on making waves (and during TIFF, that also includes a fire red sticker with a drawing by Dan Perjovschi testifying “I am making waves”).

TIFF is also supporting Making Waves by donating the proceedings of Iulia Rugina’s “Love Building” screening on June 7th, in the framework of Romanian Days.

With dwindling public funds for cinema, RFI’s experience in crowdfunding was also shared on June 4th in the framework of the Transilvania Talent Lab.

More about MAKING WAVES

As The Wall Street Journal noted last year, “Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema is the annual weeklong survey that has helped define and establish the southeastern European country as a stronghold of socially incisive, independently minded personal cinema.” Initiated in 2006, the Romanian Film Festival in New York has been nourished by the belief that the Romanian cinema, “one of the most startling developments in world cinema” (The New York Times), deserves to be exposed on a sustainable basis to American audiences. The festival provides every year an encounter with what’s best in contemporary Romanian filmmaking, and introduces American audiences to films and filmmakers who laid the ground for the new Romanian cinema. Under the leadership of cultural entrepreneur Corina Suteu, with Mihai Chirilov as artistic director and Oana Radu as festival manager, the festival has been growing by leaps and bounds, becoming a fixture on the city’s cultural scene. With each edition it attracted a larger and dedicated following and built a strong recognition among U.S. film professionals and the media.

Article By BRUCE BENNETT

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Silviu Purcarete’s ‘Somewhere in Palilula’ appears in this year’s edition of Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Having endured Nazi occupation, Allied bombing and Communist dictatorships, violent revolutions and post-Soviet liberation, it’s little wonder that Romania has produced some of the world’s bleakest cinema. Recent milestones like Cristi Puiu’s lacerating “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” and Cristian Mungiu’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” have unapologetically depicted life in realistically downbeat dramatic hues, winning over festival juries and audiences along the way.

In fact, Romania cinema has gradually become a central component of international film culture. This year, Mr. Mungiu’s “Beyond the Hills” earned screenwriting and acting recognition from the Cannes Film Festival jury, and it’s an early favorite for the foreign-film Academy Award.

“When a country is emerging from some period of great political or social tumult, there’s often a sudden explosion of new voices in the arts,” said Scott Foundas, the associate program director at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

On Thursday, FSLC will open Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema, the annual weeklong survey that has helped define and establish the southeastern European country as a stronghold of socially incisive, independently minded personal cinema. And true to form, this year’s survey has itself emerged from tumult.

Kevin Hagen for The Wall Street Journal

The series’s programmers, Mihai Chirilov and Corina Suteu, who were forced to mount the festival independently.

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You are here because you love Romanian Cinema, and so do we. This year the Romanian Film Festival in NYC is taken to new heights, as MAKING WAVES 2012, and needs your help to succeed in doing so.

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