Astra Film

ASTRA FILM is a center for documentary film and visual anthropology in Romania running a well-established international film festival of documentary film and visual anthropology, called ASTRA FILM FESTIVAL, producing its own documentary films, promoting the Romanian documentary film, organizing training programs, and managing an extensive documentary film arhive with public screening facilities.

ASTRA FILM provides a support-base and resource center for filmmakers, for scholars and students of social sciences, and for anyone interested in the use of visual images to understand, describe, analyze, and interpret culture and society. It has its own publications.

ASTRA FILM is based in Sibiu, Romania and partners with documentary film and visual anthropology organizations worldwide.

DUMITRU BUDRALA	Initiator, founder and director of ASTRA FILM FESTIVAL. Holds a PhD in visual anthropology. Filmaker, photographer, and director of the ASTRA FILM Studio, which he founded in 1991, and the president of the Astra Film Fondation. He is the author of several award-winning documentary and anthropological films (his latest film is The Curse of the Hedgehog), and of books and articles based on his research work in Transylvania.
CSILLA KATO	She has worked with ASTRA FILM FESTIVAL since 1998 as a programmer, member of the selection committee and organizer of special programs and workshops. Assistant and producer for a number of anthropology films. Coordinator of cultural anthropology Summer Schools at Central European University. Studied cultural anthropology and film studies at Eotvos Lorant University, Budapest, at London School of Economics, and at Australian National University, Canberra.
ADINA VARGATU	Worked with the ASTRA FILM FESTIVAL since 1996, in programming, selection and as an editor of the festival catalogues. Studied documentary filmmaking at the National School of Film London & Soros Documentary Film Program. Directed and co-directed video documentaries. Her research interests are in urban anthropology, with a focus on the communist-built suburbs.