The 2025 edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival, taking place in Cluj-Napoca between June 13-22, is looking at the future — but also at the past.
Within this year’s program, which features over 200 features across the ten-day event, is a central strand called “Tomorrow is Fear,” looking at dystopian works to reflect on today’s society. Amongst the films playing in the section are classics like Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” and newer genre offerings such as Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The End.”
Why program such a strand now? Speaking with Variety ahead of the festival, artistic director Mihai Chirilov is categorical: “If not now, then when?”
“With everything that’s going on around, the future doesn’t look bright,” he continues. “World politics and countless social crises generate constant turmoil, if not full-fledged despair. And then, there’s the rise of AI… Even the most skeptical or clear-headed among us, seduced by its benefits yet fully aware of the risks, only see the tip of this perverse ‘AIceberg.’ I found it fascinating to revisit now iconic classics of dystopian cinema, as many of their predictions have already become reality. Frankly, I think it is too late, and the evergreen 1984 pretty much sums up the current world status. Tomorrow is fear, and is here to stay, I’m afraid.”
Founder and president of the festival, Tudor Giurgiu, echoes that message, emphasizing how the festival was praised by its marketing campaign this year, especially its bold, futuristic festival poster. “We deliberately timed [the campaign] to explode before the second round of presidential elections in Romania, when most of our audience felt very stressed because there was this danger of an extreme right-wing candidate winning. Luckily, it didn’t happen, but we wanted to put forward this idea of a dystopian society where things could go terribly wrong.”
TIFF festival poster, courtesy of Transilvania International Film Festival
“Our choices are more important today than ever,” adds Giurgiu. “I think this is what festivals should do. We should stay relevant by opening up conversations. We should not be copying agendas or playing to certain ideologies, but it’s important to raise conversations and be a part of what is going around us.”
This freedom of programming is at the core of TIFF, which has often gone against the grain in terms of its curatorial practices, including not adhering to the industry-wide boycott of Russian films in 2022 following the country’s invasion of Ukraine. “There’s nothing worse than festivals that treat their audience as pawns, limiting their freedom of thought,” says Chirilov.
“As a curator, you can either be a copy-paster or a gold digger,” he continues. “We choose to be the latter. Duplicating the validated line-up of the golden triad of festivals (Berlin-Cannes-Venice) is lazy – nobody owns the absolute truth. It’s more rewarding to expand your search and give a chance to other great films that go against the current or predictable narratives.”
Romania’s largest film festival features a hefty programme, which, differently from many other festivals at a time of constant budget cuts and funding troubles, has not shrunken over the last five years. Giurgiu points out that, despite the number of films in the program, the festival has won over loyal audiences due to its curatorial strength.
“In Romania, the audience is puzzled by dealing with streaming platforms because the content pool is so huge. It’s not curated. What our audiences want from us and what we can offer as a festival is this great opportunity of a curated experience. This is how you develop an audience. It’s proven that we have enhanced the local audience’s film culture.”
This attachment to nurturing a film culture and not buying into more generalized programming practices sees the festival eye not only glitzy Cannes entries fresh out from the Croisette, but also films that have played for almost a year within the circuit. These are films like Karlovy Vary entry “Xoftex,” which plays in competition, and “When the Light Breaks,” which played Un Certain Regard last year and plays out of competition in Cluj.
“Both Mihai and I share a feeling that the festival circuit has become a mad run for world premieres and, unfortunately, there are not enough good films out there to justify such a strategy,” adds Giurgiu. “We do not aim for world premieres. Sometimes it happens, but we program films because we believe in them.”
“SIrât,” courtesy of Filmes da Ermida
But there are, of course, striking, fresh-out-of-Cannes premieres to be found at TIFF, too. The festival is closing with Oliver Laxe’s prize-winning “Sirât,” a get Giurgiu is particularly proud of. “It’s a film I deeply loved and am so proud to have as our closing night film, with two key creative team members in Cluj. It’s a film that you need to see in a cinema and opens up a lot of questions. It stays with you. It’s a perfect film to end a festival with.”
Other festival favorites can be found out of competition, such as Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” and Mike Leigh’s “Hard Truths,” while the festival’s two competitions — one for fiction, one for documentaries — focuses on emerging talent in their first or second features. Standouts this year include Jeppe Rønde’s “Acts of Love,” Peter Hoogendoorn’s “Three Days of Fish,” Seth and Peter Scriver’s “Endless Cookie” and Eva Libertad’s “Deaf.”
The festival will also feature a handful of special sections, including a focus on Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr, who will be in town for a masterclass, and spotlights on Rodrigo Cortés, Rainer Sarnet and Adilkhan Yerzhanov. Estonia is this year’s country of focus, with ten films from the country playing at the festival and TIFF’s opening film “Christy” spearheads the Teen Spirit strand, which also features standouts such as Urška Djukić’s Berlinale entry “Little Trouble Girls” and Amel Guellaty’s Sundance offering “Where The Wind Comes From.”
Despite the festival’s sombre dystopian notes, Giurgiu remains “optimistic” about the future, pointing out how they have sold out several screenings before the festival even started, and a tangible legacy in returning talent and young audiences. “What we offer is a unique feeling of connecting the audience to filmmakers, and that is essential,” he says. “You would never get that if you stayed in your apartment watching a streaming platform.”
The full lineup for the 2025 Transilvania International Film Festival can be found here.
