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The
recent edition of the Astra Documentary Film Festival of Sibiu, Romania
had a double signification in the calendar of events supported by the
Ratiu Foundation, bringing to light both the Ratiu Foundation Grand Prize of the festival, and the Winner of the STEPdoc mobility grant.
This year the Ratiu Foundation had the pleasure to offer the festival’s Grand Prize to the documentary ‘Gandhi’s Children’ by Australian film-maker David MacDougall.
The festival jury decided in favour of this film not only due to the
“extremely humane nature of the anthropological discourse”, but also
due to the fact that it “has the great merit of reminding us that prior
to being anything else, a film is the amazement in the eyes of the
author, tenderly returned to the world in the form of an imperfect
document resulted from the investigation of reality” (Jury's
motivation).
The Foundation’s partnership with Astra
was created out of the common aim to encourage documentary film and
film-making in Romania. Starting with 2006, the Ratiu Foundation
offered special awards in the 2006 and 2007 editions of the festival,
and supported the participation of Astra representatives in the
Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival, in 2008. This valued
partnership saw Astra organising documentary film screenings within the
Ratiu Foundation-supported Turda Fest agricultural festival in Romania,
and spreading the word on the Foundation’s film programmes.
Sharing the stage of the prize giving ceremony with film director Cristi Puiu, Ramona Mitrica, Director of the Ratiu Foundation, also announced the winner of the 2009 session of its STEPdoc mobility grant. The winner was revealed in the person of Miruna Boruzescu, for the project ‘Zaharia: An unconventional documentary about an innocent sinner and his music’.
Miruna Boruzescu is a young Bucharest-based film-maker and musician who
has already directed several music videos and short films. The £1,500 mobility grant
will allow her a one month immersion into the UK documentary culture,
towards the development of her project, for the individual research and
networking with UK-based film-makers, producers and organisations.
STEPdoc is a Ratiu Foundation programme which aims to reinvigorate Romanian documentary film, stimulating contemporary relevance and artistic innovation. The
call for applications for the next session of STEPdoc will be launched
in the seventh edition of the Romanian Film Festival in London , in
spring 2010. Details will be made available at the appropriate time on ratiufamilyfoundation.com and romanianculturalcentre.org.uk, as well as through dedicated press releases.
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Fundatia Soros Romania lanseaza concursul de film de scurtmetraj Open Society Shorts. Deadline: 3 mai 2010
ASTRA FILM promovează documentarul românesc la UCLA Film and Television Archive din Los Angeles
