The cinema of the Netherlands is celebrated at the 25th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival (12–21 June 2026, Cluj-Napoca) through a selection that brings together both recent debut films presented at major European festivals and cult classics that have influenced entire generations of filmmakers. Focus Netherlands, curated by Evgeny Gusyatinskiy from the pr...

The Transilvania International Film Festival is launching the poster for its 25th edition. At its center is a familiar silhouette — a character who has lived through decades of history without being crushed by them, carried along by the current through monumental events, present in their midst with disarming simplicity. He sits on a bench and tells stories. The world changes....

Polish film distributor, festival founder, producer, and champion of art cinema Roman Gutek will be the first recipient of the Janovics Jenő Award at the Transilvania International Film Festival. His name is attached to the most significant Polish cinematic initiatives of the past three decades. Created in memory of a pioneer of Transylvanian and European cinema, the Janovics J...

Now in its fifth year as a dedicated competition within Transilvania IFF, the What’s Up, Doc? section brings together ten titles that span the full range of what documentary can be: alongside straight-format films, this year’s selection takes in a coyote animation, a poetic hybrid, a model of investigative journalism, and a tongue-in-cheek B-movie series. “For all their ge...

“This year’s lineup is a mix as polarising as the world it comes from. Stark black-and-white minimalism and an overdose of blood and psychedelic colour. True stories and the wildest fabrications. Genre films flirted with, or genre films thrown into an orgiastic blender. Heroes, anti-heroes. A straight line and a Möbius strip. Political satire and loony porn. Absent fathers, e...

The Transilvania International Film Festival announces a partnership with Film Independent, the Los Angeles-based organization behind the Film Independent Spirit Awards and numerous other initiatives supporting and championing independent filmmaking. As part of this collaboration, Film Independent will present Always Remember in Transilvania, a series of free screenings support...

In Spices and Lies, Mehdi and Léa work at the same restaurant and, between shifts and future plans, have also become a couple. They live together and are seriously considering taking over their boss’s business as he approaches retirement, especially with the support of Léa’s parents. Things become more complicated when Léa wants to meet Mehdi’s mother. Since he has never told h...

Winner of two awards at the latest Goya Awards, where it was nominated in eight categories, La Cena is set in 1939, immediately after the end of the Spanish Civil War. A group of defeated Republican chefs is ordered to prepare a celebratory banquet for Franco and his top generals at Madrid’s Palace Hotel. As they carry out this assignment, they devise a risky plan that may repr...

What if you discovered there is an international porridge championship? In The Golden Spurtle, this seemingly absurd premise becomes the starting point for a journey into a small Scottish village where, once a year, people from around the world compete in the art of transforming oats into a memorable bowl of porridge. Beyond the humor and competition, the documentary warmly and...

Paris Asleep (Paris qui dort, dir. René Clair, France, 1925) Paris Asleep marks René Clair’s directorial debut and stands among the earliest experiments in cinematic fantasy. It begins with a simple and inventive premise: Paris is suddenly frozen in time by a mad scientist, with only a handful of people unaffected by the mysterious phenomenon. From this situation emerges a v...

Beyond Sleep (Nooit meer slapen, dir. Boudewijn Koole, Netherlands, 2016) A young geologist travels to northern Norway on a scientific expedition that gradually turns into a struggle for survival. In the Arctic tundra, where daylight never ends, orientation becomes increasingly difficult, and the planned journey transforms into a physical and psychological ordeal. Inspired b...

Meanders (Meandre, dir. Mircea Săucan, Romania, 1967) Based on a screenplay by Horia Lovinescu, Meanders remains one of the most unusual and daring works of Romanian cinema in the 1960s, confirming Mircea Săucan as a singular author connected to European cinematic modernism. The story follows the intertwined lives of a talented architect at a personal and professional cro...

25 Years Later (După 25 de ani), one of the special programs of the anniversary edition Transilvania IFF.25 (June 12–21, 2026, Cluj-Napoca), looks back to the year 2001, bringing together titles that defined the turn of the millennium in cinema: absolute masterpieces awarded at Cannes, Berlin, or the Oscars; cult films that cinephiles return to time and again and that continue...