Visions du Réel announced February 5 that Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu will be the Special Guest for the 56th edition of the Festival, running 4-13 April). Porumboiu’s appearance at the next edition of the Festival will be celebrated with a masterclass and a retrospective of all his feature length works.
“Imbued with dark humour, Corneliu Porumboiu’s films play with the absurdity integral to Romanian society, which threw off the yoke of communism with the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu and the revolution of 1989, instantly supplanting it with unbridled capitalism,” the festival writes. “Composed of major works, his filmography has made Porumboiu one of the most well-loved and respected European filmmakers of the 21st century.”
Born in Vaslui (Romania) in 1975, Corneliu Porumboiu has released thirteen films (including 6 shorts), during a career which spans almost twenty years. He made a name for himself on the international scene with his first feature length film, 12:08 East of Bucharest, winner of the Caméra d’Or at the Festival de Cannes in 2006.
His feature films, which include Police, Adjective (2009) and The Treasure (2015), were also praised by critics and earned awards at Cannes, “further consolidating his position as a talented storyteller and as one of the greats of new Romanian cinema – alongside Cristi Puiu, Lucian Pintilie, Radu Jude, Andrei Ujica or Cristian Mungiu,” the festival writes.
“Inspired by a realistic, political approach, Porumboiu’s cinema scrutinises Romania’s recent social history, mischievously taking on its sometimes tragicomic dimension. Through dialogues infused with deadpan humour, and a discreet yet rigorous aesthetic which uses carefully composed frames and long takes, he crafts a meticulous observation of characters perplexed as they struggle to both understand a deliberately opaque reality and try to gain some sort of fulfilment from it. His most recent feature film, The Whistlers
(2019, Un Certain Regard) competition, a dark, captivating paranoid thriller, was another critical success, and confirmed the Romanian filmmaker’s love for the absurd – an aspect he sees as an integral part of his country.”
Corneliu Porumboiu is also interested in the world of football, a highly personal subject since his father was a professional referee at international level, the festival reminds. In The Second Game (2014), father and son commentate, within a minimalist setting, on a match from 1988 refereed by the father, in a snowstorm, under the eye of the Romanian propaganda TV cameras.
His other documentary, Infinite Football (2018), is a deep dive into his home city of Vaslui, in the company of a childhood friend, now a bureaucrat in local government and obsessed with one idea: improving the rules of football or replacing it with a new, more equitable sport.
Emilie Bujès, Artistic Director of Visions du Réel comments: “Driven by a unique and extremely referential humour, Corneliu Porumboiu’s films, which are often akin to
fables, cast an offbeat, critical eye on the changes to Romanian society, yet they do so gently and with great affection. He is a great filmmaker that we have dreamed of welcoming for a long time; it will be fascinating to approach his work through the prism of its perspective of reality.”
The full programme for the 56th edition of Visions du Réel will be released on 12 March.
