Astra Film Festival is launching the Lifeboats
A special programme organized in partnership with PRO TV ( `Romania, te iubesc!`) and Recorder
An extraordinary experience for the audience of the Astra Film Festival 2021. For the second consecutive year, the audience is invited to take a seat in boats floating on the lake and let themselves be carried away by the wave of documentary film. On a huge screen, located between windmills, in the middle of the Astra Museum in Sibiu, three exceptional films made by Romanian journalists, which show the ravages left behind by the criminal actions of people against nature will be screened on the evenings of September 7th, 8th, and 9th. The AFF LIFEBOATS programme is organized in partnership with the show "Romania, I love you!" (Pro TV) and with Recorder. The audience will have the opportunity to see for the first time the `Under the Sign of the Red Code` report on the recent forest fires in Greece, made by Paul Angelescu and Mihai Bucșa, journalists at "Romania, I love you!". The screening will take place in the presence of the authors.
The AFF lifeboats is a continuation of the WAVES programme, which started last year at the Astra Film Festival, and supports the Climate Collapse Alert, one of the festival`s themes. Spectators are invited in the lifeboats, hence in a safe environment, to watch films and investigations into how people`s criminal actions against nature can lead to dramatic imbalances and, ultimately, to climate collapse.
`I welcome the presence of some films made by journalists that we appreciate for their courage, in the AFF Lifeboats programme. The most important question of the moment is what awaits us, as earthlings. Things have gone too far, and it would be stupid for us all to commit suicide`, said Dumitru Budrala, founding director of the Astra Film Festival in Sibiu.
On the first evening of the AFF Lifeboats, on September 7th, we will watch `The Genocide of The Ancient Oaks: How We`re Being Robbed of our Last Lowland Forests`, a Recorder investigation made by Alex Nedea and David Muntean. The investigation shows how the secular oak forests in Muntenia are being destroyed and how no one seems to have any interest in stopping illegal logging.
`The planet is shrinking. If we do not take urgent action, humanity will end up putting its supreme trophy in the panoply of species driven to extinction due to humans: it will be the end of itself. Now we are fighting the final battle for our own survival. And in the front line, it is normal to have not only scientists, but also journalists talking about environmental disasters and investigating the stories of greed above all else. Otherwise, for the new generations, the boat will be the only place from which it will be possible to look, from which it will be able to breathe`, says Alex Nedea, journalist for Recorder.
The highlight of the programme will be taking place in the evening of September 8th, when a film shot on spot, during the recent forest fires in Greece by `Romania, I Love You!` journalists Paul Angelescu and Mihai Bucșa, will be screened for the first time.
`The devastation caused by the fires was so great that there were times when we felt that no matter how much, wherever, and however we filmed, we would not be able to reproduce the magnitude of the disaster caused by the flames. We are talking about over 100,000 burned hectares and a sky, whose bloody colour I will not forget too soon, that was swallowed by smoke for distances of tens of kilometres`, said Paul Angelescu, journalist for `Romania, I Love You!`.
The third evening of float-in film screenings, taking place on September 9th, will present the `Watch Me Rob You Blind` survey conducted by journalist Alex Dima (Romania, I love you!). We are still cutting down our forests with a criminal unconsciousness and we can`t put anything in their place.
Tickets for the three screenings of the AFF Lifeboats programme can be purchased from Eventbook: https://eventbook.ro/festival/astra-film-festival. Same as last year, people who will not be able get tickets to watch the screenings from the boats, can take a seat on the benches arranged on land, at `Casa Podarului`.
The full programme of the Astra Film Sibiu Festival /en/schedule
The 28th edition of Astra Film Festival - The International Documentary Film Festival in Sibiu celebrates life, in all its diversity, through over 200 cinematic events. Launched in 1993 as an innovative project in Central and Eastern Europe, AFF Sibiu is an essential event in the European documentary film community, proving to be the most important festival of its kind in Romania, summing up a culture and a history of documentary cinema for decades.
Organized by: Astra Film, CNM Astra and the Astra Film Foundation.
With the support of: The Sibiu County Council, The Ministry of Culture, The National Center of Cinematography, The Consulate of the Federal Republic of Germany in Sibiu, The Austrian Cultural Forum, The Filmmakers Union, The State Philarmonics Sibiu.
Co-financed by the Sibiu Local Council through the City Hall of Sibiu and by the European Union through the Creative Europe Program. The Astra Film Festival takes place under the High Patronage of the President of Romania.
Sponsors: HBO, DPD România, Materom Autohaus, Cinelab, Ursus, Nod Pub, The Refresh, Kulinarium, Sonne Restaurant Cafe
Media partners: TV5 Monde, Rock FM, Radio România Cultural, RFI România, Hotnews, News.ro, Newsweek, Spotmedia, Scena9, Avantaje, Liternet, Cineuropa, Film New Europe, Movienews, All About Romanian Cinema, Films in frame, Urban,ro, Turnul sfatului, Sibiu 100%, Tribuna, Ora de Sibiu, Știri de Sibiu, Capital cultural, Zile și nopți, Revista Transilvania, Her-manstaedter Zeitung
Communication partner: PiArt Vision
