Romanain Film Festival 2024

The theme of the festival this year is Through the Looking Glass. Lewis Carroll used this metaphor in his writing to describe an unfamiliar or abnormal setting or situation. The phrase can be used to describe a world that suddenly appears unfamiliar, as if things were turned upside down, similar to looking out from inside a mirror to find a world that’s both recognizable and yet turned inside-out. It is like a confusing looking glass world or a mysterious looking glass philosophy.

Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear is also a well-known phrase that makes us aware of how reflected images are different from the real world. When we look at ourselves in the mirror or at things through a magnifying glass we see a reversed or enlarged version of reality. That is, in a way, what movies do: project it onto the screen into a distorted, sometimes strange parallel world. 

After the fall of communism in 1989, a Romanian New Wave cinema emerged as an austere, realist, and minimalist, often accompanied by black humor type of film. It is an art form that has received a lot of acclaim, almost every year being awarded at prestigious international film festivals. Still, watching a Romanian movie is not a “sit back and relax” type of experience. It requires the audience to do an intense intellectual and emotional exercise and ask themselves questions that might not always get answers. It might be intriguing, controversial, irreverent, shocking, funny, a tragedy and dark comedy at the same time. The world portrayed in them is most often the opposite of normal or what is expected, and the characters’ personalities are hard to decipher. They are convoluted and tormented, enigmatic and insecure in their relationships and self-search. They are portrayed as if through a magnifying glass, as if in a twilight zone, leaving it to the viewer to try to make their own inferences.

We hope you will find this year’s films interesting and will come back for more next year. We will continue the tradition and hope to grow in audience. Making Romanian culture, though its many forms, known to the American public is HORA’s mission.

This year’s edition has been possible through a grant from Minnesota Humanities Center and the generous support of the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York. This work is funded in part by MHC with money from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund that was created with the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.

This year we partnered with the Minneapolis St Paul International Film Festival to offer you amazing films in state of the art cinemas. The festival will take place between November 2-10, in person at The Main Cinema, 115 SE Main St, Minneapolis, MN 55414. All movies were in Romanian language with English subtitles.

Journeys of Identity

Romanian Immigration Stories of Resilience

Saturday, November 2, 2024

2024, 60′, English Followed by Q & A

We are kicking this year’s festival with our own documentary production, the third in a series of projects documenting the Romanian footprint in Minnesota. This groundbreaking documentary offers a rare and intimate glimpse into the lives of Romanian immigrants and their families, who have journeyed across continents to make Minnesota their home. Through candid interviews and personal stories, Journeys of Identity explores themes of cultural adaptation, intergenerational identity, and the enduring spirit of resilience that defines the immigrant experience.

Find details about this documentary here.

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Notes:
Free parking is available in the designated parking lot or on the street.

This project was made possible in part by the people of Minnesota through a grant funded by an appropriation to the Minnesota Historical Society from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.