Radio România Internațional

Tag: Dogs

  • May 31, 2023 UPDATE

    May 31, 2023 UPDATE

    EDUCATION The government’s new salary offer for teachers will be
    presented to unions in an expedited procedure, so as to allow teachers to
    decide on whether to continue the strike, the education union leaders announced
    at the end of Wednesday’s negotiations. The government proposed a monthly gross
    EUR 200 payment to teaching staff and EUR 80 for non-teaching staff in the
    sector. An emergency order will also be passed, allowing entry-level teachers
    to have a starting salary equal to the national average gross wage. The all-out
    strike in Romanian undergraduate education has reached its 10th day.


    MOLDOVA The Republic of Moldova Thursday hosts the European
    Political Community Summit, attended by 50 heads of state and government. The
    European Commission is represented by its president Ursula von der Leyen and
    the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. The most important subjects on the
    agenda of the summit are security, stability and cooperation in Europe. Also attending will be the
    president of Romania, Klaus Iohannis. On
    Tuesday, the EU Council decided to double the macro-financial aid for the
    Republic of Moldova from EUR 150 to 295 million.


    POLICE On Wednesday in Romania prison officers protested salary
    levels and the working conditions. Penitentiary police workers say they work
    extensive extra hours in order to make up for personnel shortages, and oppose
    the planned increase of retirement age in the sector. Trade union
    representatives had a meeting with the justice minister, who said the dialogue
    was constructive and promised that the rights of prison officers will be
    respected. Cătălin Predoiu added that in the following two years at most, up to
    2,000 officers will be recruited in order to fill the vacancies in the penitentiary
    system.


    CHAMPIONSHIP The 2023 World Rescue Championship takes place in
    Craiova, southern Romania, between June 1 and 4. This is the largest such event
    of the International Canine Federation, with more than 60 search and rescue
    dogs taking part, from 10 countries (Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Italy,
    Japan, Romania, Slovenia, Ukraine and the Netherlands). The world’s top 19
    teams will compete in various sections, including surface search for missing
    persons, obedience and dexterity, and search for victims in the rubble.
    Craiova is the first city in the world to have organised five World Rescue
    Championships (2009, 2016, 2021, 2022, and 2023).


    GRAIN EU agriculture ministers meeting in the AGRIFISH council have
    not managed to unblock 100 million euros worth of aid for farmers affected by
    Ukraine’s export of cheap grain. Romania is one of the five countries that may
    benefit from the aid and it stands to receive around EUR 30 million. The
    European commissioner for agriculture Ianusz Wojciechowski gave assurances that
    the aid will be unblocked and the situation monitored. He said he was not in
    favour of using the EU budget to buy Ukrainian grain to be supplied to the
    world food programme because the cost would be three times that of the cereals
    themselves. He believes the money would be better used, in the long term, to
    improve the infrastructure, for example that of Romania, and said he would have
    talks in this regard with the European commissioner for transport and
    infrastructure Adina Vălean.

    TENNIS The only Romanian
    athlete left in the Roland Garros competition, Irina Begu, Wednesday defeated
    Italy’s Sara Errani, in 2 sets, 6 – 3, 6 – 0. On Tuesday, Sorana Cirstea was
    kicked out of the competition by another Italian player, Jasmine Paolini. Also
    on Tuesday, the Canadian athlete Bianca Andreescu won against Victoria
    Azarenka (Belarus) in 3 sets. (AMP)

  • Bogdan Mirica’s Dogs opens in Romanian cinemas

    Bogdan Mirica’s Dogs opens in Romanian cinemas

    Dogs, Bogdan Miricas debut feature film has opened in more than 70 cinemas and other screening venues across Romania. Dogs won the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the 69th Cannes Festival, the Transylvania Trophy at the Transylvania International Film Festival in Cluj Napoca, and two awards at the Sarajevo Film Festival. The plot is set is eastern Romania, near the Ukrainian border. A young man from the city called Roman goes to an isolated village in Dobrogea to sell a plot of land he inherited from his grandfather who had died a couple of months before. During his stay, he gradually becomes aware of a series of strange events. There is something threatening in the air. Alongside Dragoş Bucur, Vlad Ivanov and Gheorghe Visu, the cast includes Teodor Corban, Raluca Aprodu, Costel Caşcaval and Constantin Cojocaru. The director Bogdan Mirică also wrote the screenplay of the film, which critics believe is a departure from the Romanian New Wave:



    Bogdan Mirică: “I think an unjustifiable distinction is being made between art-house films and films for the public, which means that many people have become used to automatically viewing art films as boring and popular films as superficial. I dont think this type of looking at things is valid, considering that there are many films that enjoy both critical acclaim and box office success. I also think that instead of stubbornly dividing things into separate categories, we should be honest with ourselves and see where the film takes us. I hope as many people as possible can relate to my film, which may or may not translate into box-office success.“



    “Im not interested in a social critique of contemporary Romania. I am interested in speaking about certain typologies, says Bogdan Mirica. He tells us the idea for the film is based on impressions he remembers from his childhood:



    Bogdan Mirică: “I dont know if they were objective observations or rather emotions. I spent my childhood in the countryside and I witnessed some events there, some of them very brutal and arbitrary. I think arbitrary violence is terrifying because you dont know what causes violence and you cant predict that a certain situation will escalate. I had been thinking of this kind of atmosphere and a certain human type for a long time and at some point I realised there was a potential there I could develop in the film. As an independent filmmaker you know your project may take years to develop and have to be sure you wont get bored with it. I realised there were enough emotions in me to be able to develop this project without becoming bored or discouraged along the way.



    Bogdan Mirica wrote the screenplay of his film Dogs with two actors in mind for two key roles: Gheorghe Visu and Vlad Ivanov:



    Bogdan Mirică: “The discussions I first had with the actors focused more on the world I wanted to create rather than on the characters. This world, to be characterised by a kind of theatricality and poetry and a kind of nostalgia, does not have a perfect counterpart in reality. The register of the film is not a realistic one, the way characters speak is not realistic, the way they keep silent or relate to one another is not realistic either. So I had to make the actors understand the kind of atmosphere I wanted to create and I wanted to create a stylistic coherence. […] As a director you have many tools, many instruments at hand and Gheorghe Visu is a strong presence with a kind of halo about him and Im referring to the way he stands and forces his feet into the ground and in this way, his acting might have become redundant. So I wanted to balance such situations to make sure I reach my target.



    The film directed by Bogdan Mirica has been selected at festivals in Finland, Norway, Canada, Poland, Israel, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Sweden, the USA and Italy.

  • Les réalisateurs Cristian Mungiu et Bogdan Mirică

    Les réalisateurs Cristian Mungiu et Bogdan Mirică

    Le cinéma roumain sest fait remarquer, cette année aussi, au Festival international du film de Cannes, où il a été représenté par cinq productions: le long-métrage “Sieranevada”, de Cristi Puiu, le court-métrage “4:15 P.M. La fin du monde”, écrit et réalisé par les débutants Cătălin Rotaru et Gabi Virginia Şarga, le court-métrage décole “Tous les fleuves vont à la mer “, produit par lUNATC, réalisé par Alexandru Badea et présenté dans la section Cinéfondation, et les deux productions entrées au palmarès – “Baccalauréat” (prix de la mise en scène pour Cristian Mungiu) et “Chiens”, de Bogdan Mirică, récompensé du prix de la critique internationale FIPRESCI de la section “Un Certain Regard”. Cristian Mungiu est déjà bien connu sur la Croisette, où trois de ses quatre longs-métrages ont reçu des récompenses: “4 mois, 3 semaines et deux jours” a eu la Palme dOr, en 2007; “Au-delà des collines” a été distingué, en 2012, du prix du meilleur scénario et du prix dinterprétation féminine pour le travail des comédiennes Cristina Flutur et Cosmina Stratan; enfin, cette année, Cristian Mungiu sest vu attribuer le prix de la mise en scène, ex-æquo avec le Français Olivier Assayas, récompensé, lui, pour le film “Personal Shopper”.





    Une reconnaissance méritée et qui lhonore, considère Cristian Mungiu, dautant plus quelle saccompagne de lappréciation du public, notamment celui de létranger et de la diaspora roumaine, car, ajoute le réalisateur roumain au nom de tous ses collègues, “il arrive souvent que nous soyons plus connus et plus respectés dans dautres pays quen Roumanie”.





    Ce sont, dailleurs, les préférences du public qui pèsent sur le choix du sujet de ses films, fait savoir Cristian Mungiu: “Cest un croisement de ce qui mintéresse et mémeut personnellement avec ce qui, je crois, a un impact aussi sur le public. Cest à partir de là que jessaie de construire un film qui ne soit ni un cours de sciences-po ni un commentaire social, mais seulement un produit cinématographique avec action, histoires… Si je prends lexemple de “4 mois, 3 semaines et deux jours”, je nai jamais voulu en faire un film qui condamne le communisme, je ne me suis jamais proposé de revisiter lépoque pour en extraire une chronique des dernières années du régime communiste. Jai juste raconté une histoire que je connaissais. Le plus important cest que les gens se rendent compte quils sont en train de regarder un film. Si, en plus des émotions éveillées par tout produit artistique, le film leur pose aussi des questions… ben, tant mieux”.





    “Baccalauréat”, la production la plus récente signée par Cristian Mungiu, non seulement pose des questions, mais touche un point douloureux de la société roumaine: la corruption. Elle renvoie aussi au premier film de Mungiu, “Occident”, une comédie sur le dilemme des jeunes de partir à létranger ou de rester au pays, sortie en 2002. “Baccalauréat” parle de ceux qui sont restés et qui sont confrontés aujourdhui au même dilemme du départ de leurs enfants.



    Est-ce un cycle qui se referme? Cristian Mungiu: “Je serais heureux que ce cycle se referme. Mais je crois que, malheureusement, il nen est pas encore là et que nous le passerons à nos enfants. Javoue que, 15 ans après “Occident”, je ne mattendais pas à ce quon soit là. Je ne pensais pas reprendre ce thème, jespérais voir les choses évoluer différemment. Cette fois-ci, jai approché le thème sous un autre angle, celui dun parent qui a beaucoup plus de soucis quil y a 15 ans, quand nous pensions pouvoir changer le monde dici. Aujourdhui, quand je réfléchis aux conseils que les parents devraient donner à leur progéniture, je me rends compte que nous navons pas progressé comme je le souhaitais et quil est difficile de donner des conseils ou de prendre des décisions. Cest ce qui ma poussé à revisiter ce thème qui préoccupe de nombreux parents de ma génération.”







    Bogdan Mirică a été présent à lédition 2016 du Festival de Cannes avec son premier long-métrage, “Chiens”, désigné meilleur film de la section “Un certain regard” par le jury de la critique internationale FIPRESCI. Bogdan Mirică, qui a débuté comme réalisateur en 2010, avec le court-métrage “Junkie”, avouait avoir découvert le cinéma à lâge de 30 ans, quand il avait commencé à écrire des scénarios. Alors, il nous a semblé tout à fait naturel de lui demander ce qui est plus important dans un film – lhistoire ou linnovation purement cinématographique?




    Bogdan Mirică : “Dans mon film, cétait mon choix de reléguer lhistoire au second plan, parce quil nest pas très difficile décrire une histoire cohérente du début à la fin. Moi, jai voulu maventurer sur le terrain des sensations et proposer un film qui frappe au plexus solaire, pas forcément par lhistoire racontée, mais par lensemble, par latmosphère. Mais quand je dis que la narration est secondaire, cela ne veut pas dire quelle est débile, mais quelle a des ellipses, des tranches qui ne vont pas jusquau bout, mais que le spectateur peut boucler, sil est observateur.”







    Scénariste de ses propres productions, Bogdan Mirică affirme que tout nouveau film part dun mélange de sensations, avant dêtre mis sur papier. Cest ce qui est arrivé avec le long-métrage “Chiens”: “Jécris à partir dun sentiment, dune émotion plutôt confuse, et puis, les choses commencent à sordonner et je crée une histoire autour de cette émotion. Dans ce cas précis, cétaient des souvenirs denfance, quand jai passé plusieurs étés chez ma grand-mère, à la campagne. Cest là que jai assisté, des fois, à des conflits, certains assez agressifs, entre des gens du coin. Des années plus tard, je me suis rendu compte que ce qui avait effrayé lenfant que jétais ce ne fut pas la manifestation de la violence mais son caractère arbitraire. Mon film part dune réalité roumaine, mais je nai pas eu en tête de reconstituer cette réalité. Ce nest pas un film réaliste, les personnages parlent presquen paraboles, le temps du film est une licence poétique. On ma dailleurs dit que cest une atmosphère quasi tchékhovienne. Mais si, à lavenir, je sens que ces artifices sont un fardeau et que je dois être plus près de la réalité, je le ferai… probablement.”




    Quels que soient ses futurs choix, Bogdan Mirică a fait un début prometteur. Comme ce fut également le cas de Cristian Mungiu, qui vient dêtre invité à rejoindre les membres ayant le droit de voter, de lAcadémie du film des Etats – Unis. (Trad.: Ileana Taroi)

  • Film directors Cristian Mungiu and Bogdan Mirica

    Film directors Cristian Mungiu and Bogdan Mirica

    Five Romanian movies were selected to participate in the festivals 17th edition: Cristi Puius feature film “Sieranevada, a début short reel entitled “4:15 P.M. End of the World written and directed by Catalin Rotaru and Gabi Virginia Sarga, “All rivers flow into the sea, a Romanian Film Academy short reel, directed by Alexandru Badea, (running in the Cinefondation section) along with two winning productions, “Graduation, which brought Cristian Mungiu the best director award and Bogdan Miricas “Dogs, winner of the FIPRESCI award in the “Un Certain Regard section.


    We recall that Cristian Mungiu has reaped three Cannes awards with his productions. “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days brought him the Palme dOr award in 2007. Another production signed by him, “Beyond the Hills got Best Screenplay Award and Best Actress Award, which went to Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan in 2012. In 2016 Mungiu shared the Best Director Award with French Olivier Assayas. A well deserved and also honouring award, as was described by Mungiu himself, mainly because the film has been appreciated by the public from abroad and from the Diaspora. As the Romanian director pointed out, “we are more appreciated abroad than in our own country. Director Mungiu confesses that he takes into account public preferences when it comes to choosing the future plots of his films.



    Cristian Mungiu: “There is a connection between the things that I am concerned about and those that may have an impact on the public. Out of this mélange I am trying to churn out a film, which is not intended to be a socio-political course, or social discourse, but a cinema production with some action and things that are happening. When I made ‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days I wasn’t trying to make a movie that would be critical to communism. I presented only an event that I knew of back then. Its important that people knew they are watching a movie. And if besides emotions that movie is also asking some questions, all the better.



    Not only is Mungius latest film, “Graduation or “Baccalaureate raising questions but also touches a sensitive chord with the Romanians: “corruption. Furthermore, the film is in line with Mungius first production “Occident, which he made in 2002, a comedy about the young Romanians dilemma, to stay or to leave the country. “Graduation speaks about those who chose to live in Romania but facing the same dilemma when it comes to their children. But can we speak about a series that was opened by “Occident and closes with “Graduation?



    Cristian Mungiu: “I would be happy if this series ended here, but sadly I believe it will remain open and well even pass it to our children. I didn’t expect that 15 years on from ‘Occident wed be at this point now. I hoped things would develop differently but now I have to revisit the issue from a different angle, that of a parent with much more concerns than I had 15 years back. At that time we thought we could change the world for everybody, including parents. Today, when I think how parents should advise children, I realize the progress is not what we wanted and its difficult to give advice or make decisions. So I have revisited this theme, a reason of concern for many parents at my age.



    Bogdan Mirica, whose feature film “Dog has been designated by the FIPRESCI jury as the best production running in the “Un Certain Regard section, made his début in 2010 with a film entitled “Junkie. He said he discovered the cinema at the age of 30 when he began to write scripts. But what is the most important part in a film? Its the plot, the script or the directors inspiration?



    Bogdan Mirica: “In the case of my film I preferred not to focus on the story very much, because its not very difficult to write a coherent story. I just wanted to experiment with sensations and make a punchy film, but not necessarily through story…through atmosphere, through everything. I wanted it to have an impact, not necessarily supported by the story. That doesn’t mean however the story is sloppy, but that it has some parts missing or uncompleted and its the viewer that could put pieces together.



    As a scriptwriter for his own films, Bogdan Mirica admits that a film usually stems from a mélange of feelings, before laying down its concrete blueprint. This is how things happened with his award-winning “Dogs:



    Bogdan Mirica: “I begin writing from a feeling, from an emotion, which could be pretty unclear at first, but slowly and gradually things are falling into place and I set out to build a real story around that feeling. In this case its about some memories of my childhood, while I was spending my summer holidays at my grandparents in the countryside. There I witnessed conflicts between locals, and some of them were pretty violent. After years I realized I wasn’t much horrified by violence at that time but by its randomness. I didn’t care very much about the idea of reconstructing that reality, though. The film isn’t a realistic one, characters are almost always talking in riddles and time is unreal. I was told the atmosphere in the film is almost Chekhovian and this how I wanted it to be. And if in the future I get the feeling that all these tricks are becoming obsolete and I need to get rid of them and come closer to reality, Ill probably do that.

  • June 5, 2016

    June 5, 2016

    39.17% of the registered voters in Romania had cast their votes in the local elections, 3 hours before the closing of polling stations, show data provided by the Central Electoral Bureau. Over 250,000 candidates are running for the position of mayor and local councilor in Romania’s almost 3,200 cities and communes and for the position of county councilor in Romania’s 41 counties. For the citizens of other EU member states, who have legal residence in Romania, additional election lists have been drafted for them to be able to elect their local representatives. For the first time the polling stations have been equipped with computer voter identification systems to monitor voter turnout and prevent multiple voting. These local elections are taking place in one round, the winner being the one who gets the simple majority of the votes cast. The measure has been criticized by civil society representatives and the media, that claim that, in the context of a low voter turnout, some of the elected mayors will be considered illegitimate.



    The Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis, will pay a visit to Luxembourg on Monday and Tuesday at the invitation of Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg. The Romanian official will also meet with the prime minister Xavier Bettel, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Mars di Bartolomeo, and the foreign minister, Jean Asselborn. The talks will focus on deepening the political and sectoral relations between Romania and Luxembourg, with special emphasis on boosting economic cooperation as well as cooperation in the fields of research, development and industrial innovation. Another issue under debate will be the preparation of the NATO summit to be held in Warsaw, in July. On the occasion of the visit, the two officials will sign the Exchange Program in the fields of science and technology, education, culture and sports between the government of Romania and Luxembourg, valid for the period 2016- 2021.



    The film “Dogs” by the Romanian director Bogdan Mirică is the winner of this year’s edition of the Transylvania International Film Festival TIFF. The director received the award on Saturday night from the minister of culture, Corina Şuteu. The film Dogs, the only Romanian movie registered in the TIFF 2016 competition, received the critics’ award in the 2016 edition of the Cannes Festival. Film producer Iain Smith, who produced such movies as ‘Mad Max’ and ‘The fifth element’ received the TIFF Special Prize for his contribution to World Cinematography while the actress Carmen Galin was awarded the festival’s Prize of Excellence. The audience’s Prize went to the film ‘Open door’ — La Puerta Abierta by director Marina Seresesky while the FIPRESCI award granted by the foreign press went to the film “Neon Bull” directed by Gabriel Mascaro. An outstanding personality of world cinematography, actress Sofia Loren received the Lifetime Achievement Award.



    Romania’s women’s’ handball team was defeated by the team of Belarus 23-20 on Saturday in Piatra Neamt, in their last match in the preliminary Group 1 of the European Championship to be hosted by Sweden in December 2016. Romania’s team qualified, however, to the final tournament in Sweden on Wednesday when they defeated the Lithuanian team in Kaunas, in the last but one leg of the group. Romania’s women’s’ handball team will also participate in this summer’s Olympic Games hosted by Rio de Janeiro. (news translated by Lacramioara Simion)