SCHEDULE![]()
19:30
BIFF 2025 Opening Gala
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
DINȚI DE LAPTE
Director: Mihai Mincan
Runtime: 1h 44’
In the final days of Ceausescu’s Romania, a ten-year-old girl becomes the last witness to her sister’s mysterious disappearance and must find the courage to grow up in a collapsing world.
SECTION: COMPETITION
Saturday, September 20
17:00
Muzeul Țăranului Român
SHORT FILM COMPETITION
Runtime: 70min
DRAGOSTEA E ÎN AER, R.Claudiu Mitcu, România, 2025, 18’
VALI, R.Claudiu Mitcu, România, 2025, 24’
THE SPECTACLE, R. Bálint Kenyeres, Ungaria, Franța, 2025, 17’
A VERY STRAIGHT NECK, R. Neo Sora, China, Japonia, 2025, 11’
SECTION: SHORT FILM COMPETITION
18:30
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT
Director: Lauri-Matti Parppei
Runtime: 1h48’
After a breakdown, classical flute player Pauli (29), returns to his hometown to recover at his parents’ house. Unable to play his instrument, he struggles with feelings of failure. Pauli runs into Iiris, an old classmate who makes experimental music by herself. Little by little he starts finding new comfort and solace in their weird sonic experiments. As old pressures resurface, Pauli faces difficult choices about his future and the friendships that have given him new hope.
SECTION: COMPETITION
20:30
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
LA MISTERIOSA MIRADA DEL FLAMENCO
Director: Diego Cespedes
Runtime: 1h44’
An unknown disease begins to spread in a small mining town in the Chilean desert, in 1982. Twelve-year-old Lidia, the only girl in the community, sets out in search of the truth. Her adored brothers, Alexo (23 years old) and Nicolás (15 years old), are suspected to be carriers of the sickness and therefore they’re blindfolded and put in quarantine. Lidia sees that the townspeople begin to harass them, and their father, Gastón (43 years old), exposes them to humiliating public situations trying to prove that they are not ill.
SECTION: COMPETITION
19:00
Cinema Union
MOI QUI T’AIMAIS (C’EST SI BON)
Director: Diane Kurys
Runtime: 1h58’
After a successful premiere in Cannes this year, C’EST SI BON! directed by the well-known Diane Kurys (Oscar nominee in 1984 for Best Foreign Film “Entre nous”), retraces the tumultuous love story of an iconic couple: Yves Montand and Simone Signoret. Haunted by her husband’s affair with Marilyn Monroe and bruised by all those that followed, Signoret always refused the role of victim.What they knew was that they would never leave each other. She loved him more than anything else, he loved her more than anyone else.In front of Diane Kurys’s camera, Roschdy Zem and Marina Foïs embody these two cinema legends.
SECTION: PANORAMA
19:00
Cinemateca Eforie
MARIA, INIMA ROMÂNIEI
Director: Trevor Poots
Runtime: 1h12’
The story of the political role and the fascinating private life of Queen Maria of Romania. A granddaughter of Queen Victoria, she married the Crown Prince of Romania in 1893. The film shows how she led the country through the horrors of World War I, up to the triumph at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
SECȚIUNE: ISTORIE ȘI CINEMA
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
20:00
Grădina cu Filme
DINȚI DE LAPTE
Director: Mihai Mincan
Runtime: 1h 44’
In the final days of Ceausescu’s Romania, a ten-year-old girl becomes the last witness to her sister’s mysterious disappearance and must find the courage to grow up in a collapsing world.
SECTION: COMPETITION
*Replay
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
Sunday, September 21
17:00
Muzeul Țăranului Român
SHORT FILM COMPETITION
Runtime: 72min
TREI, R. Iulia Rugină, România, 2025, 17’
HERE COMES THE SUN, R. Mario Ovidio Grasso, Nikolas Dacius Grasso, România, 2025, 7’
REFRENUL COPILĂRIEI, R. Alin Brancu, România, 2025, 22’
NERVOUS ENERGY, R. Eve Liu, SUA, 2025, 15’
ALI, R.Adnan Al Rajeev, Bangladesh, Filipine 2025, 15’
SECTION: SHORT FILM COMPETITION
18:30
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
THE PRESIDENT’S CAKE
Director: Hasan Hadi
Runtime: 1h42’
While people struggle daily to survive under sanctions in Saddam’s Iraq, nine-year-old Lamia must use her wits to gather ingredients for the mandatory cake to celebrate President Saddam Hussein’s birthday or face the consequences—prison or death.
SECTION: COMPETITION
20:00
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
Nephro #2
Director: Bogdan Mureșanu
Runtime: 16’
Adela e o actriță singură, în căutare de job. Cum va reacționa când aflâ câ o situație de viață se suprapune cu una personală și cu una de sănătate?
SECTION PANORAMA
EUROPOLIS
Director: Kostadin Bonev
Runtime: 1h20’
In 1933 Eugeniu Botez, an engineer by profession and a commandant of the harbour of Sulina, wrote a novel. He entitled it "Europolis" and signed it under the name of Jean Bart. A year later he died. In this strange novel Jean Bart prophecies that one day nothing will be left from the town, once full of life. With the death of Europolis Europe will be slowly dying in pains. A few years later his prophecy started to come true…
SECTION PANORAMA
MAGICIANUL
Director: Bogdan Mureșanu
Runtime: 25’
În Sulina, 1910, este inaugurată prima centrală electrică din acest oraș portuar românesc. În jubilarea unei mulțimi moderne și cosmopolite, Ilarion, un magician, încearcă să-și joace ultima carte pentru a-și salva viața.
SECTION PANORAMA
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
18:30
Cinema Union
A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT
Director: Lauri-Matti Parppei
Runtime: 1h48’
After a breakdown, classical flute player Pauli (29), returns to his hometown to recover at his parents’ house. Unable to play his instrument, he struggles with feelings of failure. Pauli runs into Iiris, an old classmate who makes experimental music by herself. Little by little he starts finding new comfort and solace in their weird sonic experiments. As old pressures resurface, Pauli faces difficult choices about his future and the friendships that have given him new hope.
SECTION: COMPETITION
*Replay
20:30
Cinema Union
LA MISTERIOSA MIRADA DEL FLAMENCO
Director: Diego Cespedes
Runtime: 1h44’
An unknown disease begins to spread in a small mining town in the Chilean desert, in 1982. Twelve-year-old Lidia, the only girl in the community, sets out in search of the truth. Her adored brothers, Alexo (23 years old) and Nicolás (15 years old), are suspected to be carriers of the sickness and therefore they’re blindfolded and put in quarantine. Lidia sees that the townspeople begin to harass them, and their father, Gastón (43 years old), exposes them to humiliating public situations trying to prove that they are not ill.
SECTION: COMPETITION
*Replay
19:00
Cinemateca Eforie
MOI QUI T’AIMAIS (C’EST SI BON)
Director: Diane Kurys
Runtime: 1h58’
After a successful premiere in Cannes this year, C’EST SI BON! directed by the well-known Diane Kurys (Oscar nominee in 1984 for Best Foreign Film “Entre nous”), retraces the tumultuous love story of an iconic couple: Yves Montand and Simone Signoret. Haunted by her husband’s affair with Marilyn Monroe and bruised by all those that followed, Signoret always refused the role of victim.What they knew was that they would never leave each other. She loved him more than anything else, he loved her more than anyone else.
SECTION: PANORAMA
*Replay
20:00
Grădina cu Filme
FLUTURI DE NOAPTE
Director: Andrei Ștefan Răuțu
Runtime: 1h20’
In 2019, Marina Voica stars in a short film directed by Andrei Rautu, and since then, Andrei refuses to leave her life. Initially, Marina agrees to shoot a music video with Andrei, and later, the idea of making a documentary. However, she is not entirely satisfied with the way he films her. The interaction between the camera and the character unfolds as a battle of unmasking, in which the director seems to lose to the Romanian music diva, unsure of how to relate to her: as a grandmother or as a vibrant artist.
SECTION: ROMANIAN AUTHORS
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
Monday, September 22
18:30
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
INK WASH
Director: Sarra Tsorakidis
Runtime: 1h31’
A painter approaching her 40th birthday is going through a breakup. An intense workload gives her insight into her personal life, reminding her that the road ahead requires perseverance.
SECTION: COMPETITION
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
20:30
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
THE LAST ONE OF THE ROAD
Director:Francesco Sossai
Runtime: 1h40’
Two blustery 50-somethings, have an obsession: going for their last drink. One night, they run into Giulio, a shy architecture student, whose way of seeing the world and love will be transformed as the trio wander from bar to bar of Veneto.
SECTION: COMPETITION
18:00
Cinema Union
BABI YAR. CONTEXT
Director: Sergei Loznitsa
Runtime: 2h 1’
Babi Yar is the ravine at the edge of the Ukrainian capital Kiev where one of the largest mass executions in history took place. Sergei Loznitsa tells this documentary account in meticulous detail, building from the lead up to the aftermath of the two days in September 1941, when Nazis shot dead 33,771 Jews at this place.
SECTION: RETROSPECTIVE
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
20:30
Cinema Union
STATE FUNERAL
Director: Sergei Loznitsa
Runtime: 1h 48m
Unique, mostly unseen before, archive footage from March 1953, presents the funeral of Joseph Stalin as the culmination of the dictator’s personality cult. The news of Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, shocked the entire Soviet Union. The burial ceremony was attended by tens of thousands of mourners. We observe every stage of the funeral spectacle, described by Pravda newspaper as “the Great Farewell”, and receive an unprecedented access to the dramatic and absurd experience of life and death under Stalin’s reign.
SECTION: RETROSPECTIVE
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
18:00
Cinemateca Eforie
SHORT FILM COMPETITION
Runtime: 88′
ANESTEZIC, R. Daiana Stănușoiu, România, 2024, 20’
NESPORTIV, R. Arina Litvinova, România, 2024, 26’
WITHOUT KELLY, R. Lovisa Siren, Suedia, 2025, 15’
LOTERIE CU FINAL ÎNCHIS, R. Corneliu Cîrdeiu, România, 2025, 11’
FLORI FETE ȘI BĂIEȚI, R. Simona Borcea, România, 2024, 16’
SECTION: SHORT FILM COMPETITION
20:00
Cinemateca Eforie
THE PRESIDENT’S CAKE
Director: Hasan Hadi
Runtime: 1h42’
While people struggle daily to survive under sanctions in Saddam’s Iraq, nine-year-old Lamia must use her wits to gather ingredients for the mandatory cake to celebrate President Saddam Hussein’s birthday or face the consequences—prison or death.
SECTION: COMPETITION
*Replay
20:00
Grădina cu Filme
RUSALKA
Director: Claudiu Mitcu
Runtime: 1h26’
Rusalka, a Bulgarian resort stuck in time, tackles the theme of aging and dealing with the regrets of the past, and tells the story of five old friends, all in their 70s. A member of the group invites her friends, at her own expense, to spend a stay at the resort where they used to spend their holidays together since their youth. One of the reasons for the invitation is that the woman wants to inform her close friends that she has little left to live.
SECTION: ROMANIAN AUTHORS
Tuesday, September 23
18:30
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
PALEONTOLOGY LESSON
Director: Sergei Loznitsa
Runtime: 12’
In June 2023, Ukraine is fighting against Russian invasion. In Kyiv, a group of schoolchildren visits the Natural History Museum, guided by a teacher, who, as if by magic, transports the kids into a faraway world, where there is no war.
SECTION: RETROSPECTIVE
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION
Director: Sergei Loznitsa
Runtime: 1h49’
Based on the book by German writer W.G. Sebald, examines the perception and processing of the phenomenon of mass destruction of the German civilian population in European post-war literature.
SECTION: RETROSPECTIVE
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
20:00
Grădina cu Filme
SHORT FILM COMPETITION
Runtime: 73′
NERVOUS ENERGY, R. Eve Liu, SUA, 2025, 15’
A VERY STRAIGHT NECK, R. Neo Sora, China, Japonia, 2025, 11’
WITHOUT KELLY, R. Lovisa Siren, Suedia, 2025, 15’
THE SPECTACLE, R. Bálint Kenyeres, Ungaria, Franța, 2025, 17’
ALI, R.Adnan Al Rajeev, Bangladesh, Filipine 2025, 15’
SECTION: SHORT FILM COMPETITION
Wednesday, September 24
18:30
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
THE VISITOR
Director: Vytautas Katkus
Runtime: 1h51’
End of summer. Danielius (in mid 30s) makes a return to his hometown to sell his parents’ flat. Having nowhere to rush, he reconnects with people and the town that’s no longer his. He is confronted with a quiet sense of loneliness.
SECTION: COMPETITION
20:30
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
ROMERÍA
Director: Carla Siomon
Runtime: 1h54’
Marina, 18, orphaned at a young age, must travel to Spain’s Atlantic coast to obtain a signature for a scholarship application from the paternal grandparents she has never met. She navigates a sea of new aunts, uncles and cousins, uncertain whether she will be embraced or met with resistance. Stirring long-buried emotions, reviving tenderness, and uncovering unspoken wounds tied to the past, Marina pieces together the fragmented and often contradictory memories of the parents she barely remembers.
SECTION: PANORAMA
20:00
Grădina cu Filme
AFTER THE END
Director: Pablo Cesar
Runtime: 1h30’
Gloria (88) is a prominent Argentine artist and gallery owner. She is going through the most turbulent years: her husband, with whom she has been since her adolescence, decides to leave the country. While Gloria senses that the end is approaching, her mind and heart review the long road that brought her to the present.
SECTION PANORAMA
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
Thursday, September 25
18:00
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
THE LAST ONE OF THE ROAD
Director: Francesco Sossai
Runtime: 1h40’
Two blustery 50-somethings, have an obsession: going for their last drink. One night, they run into Giulio, a shy architecture student, whose way of seeing the world and love will be transformed as the trio wander from bar to bar of Veneto.
SECTION: COMPETITION
*Replay
20:00
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
GOD WILL NOT HELP
Director: Hana Jušić
Runtime: 2h17’
A Chilean woman, Teresa, comes into a firmly structured and isolated mountain community of Croatian shepherds in the early 20th century, claiming to be the widow of their émigré brother. Her arrival heavily changes the dynamics between the members of the community and brings unrest, but Teresa also brings freedom.
SECTION: COMPETITION
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
20:00
Grădina cu Filme
INK WASH
Director: Sarra Tsorakidis
Runtime: 1h31’
A painter approaching her 40th birthday is going through a breakup. An intense workload gives her insight into her personal life, reminding her that the road ahead requires perseverance.
SECTION: COMPETITION
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
*Replay
Friday, September 26
18:30
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
THE VISITOR
Director: Vytautas Katkus
Runtime: 1h51’
End of summer. Danielius (in mid 30s) makes a return to his hometown to sell his parents’ flat. Having nowhere to rush, he reconnects with people and the town that’s no longer his. He is confronted with a quiet sense of loneliness.
SECTION: COMPETITION
*Replay
20:30
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
SYNONYMS
Director: Nadav Lapid
Runtime:2h3’
The film follows Yoav, a young Israeli man who moves to Paris to escape his Israeli identity, hoping that embracing French language and culture will lead to salvation.
SECTION: RETROSPECTIVE
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
20:00
Grădina cu Filme
DESPRE VIATA – REGELE MIHAI
Runtime: 30’
The documentary is a testimonial of King Michael about his relationship with Queen Elena and King Carol II, and also about faith and loyalty. The film also presents the last interview with Prince Philip of Great Britain given to John Florescu, executive producer, about the relationship with his direct cousin and the visits to Romania in 1927.
SECTION: HISTORY AND CINEMA
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
ENIGMELE ROMÂNIEI
Director: Marin Dinescu
Runtime: 75’
Season 2 investigates three unsolved mysteries from our country’s history: the assassination of Prime Minister Barbu Catargiu (in 1862), UFO sightings over the territory of Mioritic (in 1968, 1989, and 1992), and the forbidden love of singer Maria Tănase during World War II.
SECTION: HISTORY AND CINEMA
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
Saturday, September 27
18:00
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
AHED’S KNEE
Director: Nadav Lapid
Runtime: 1h49’
An Israeli filmmaker throws himself in the midst of two battles doomed to fail: one against the death of freedom, the other against the death of a mother.
SECTION: RETROSPECTIVE
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
20:30
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
ROMERÍA
Director: Carla Siomon
Runtime: 1h54’
Marina, 18, orphaned at a young age, must travel to Spain’s Atlantic coast to obtain a signature for a scholarship application from the paternal grandparents she has never met. She navigates a sea of new aunts, uncles and cousins, uncertain whether she will be embraced or met with resistance.
SECTION: PANORAMA
*Replay
20:00
Grădina cu Filme
GOD WILL NOT HELP
Director: Hana Jušić
Runtime: 2h17’
A Chilean woman, Teresa, comes into a firmly structured and isolated mountain community of Croatian shepherds in the early 20th century, claiming to be the widow of their émigré brother. Her arrival heavily changes the dynamics between the members of the community and brings unrest, but Teresa also brings freedom.
SECTION: COMPETITION
*Replay
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)
Sunday, September 28
19:00
BIFF 2025 Closing Gala
Cinema Muzeul Țăranului
YES
Director: Nadav Lapid
Runtime: 2h30’
Israel, in the aftermath of October 7. Y., a jazz musician struggling to make ends meet, and his wife Jasmine, a dancer, sell their art, souls and bodies to the elite, and bring pleasure and consolation to a bleeding nation. Soon, Y. is given a mission of the highest importance: setting to music a new national anthem.
SECTION: PANORAMA
(Screening followed by a Q&A session)