The caravan of Romania – Republic of Moldova – Cernauti Romanian cinematographic works organized under the banner ‘Romanian Film Centennial – 100 Years, 100 Films, 100 Cities’ was launched on Saturday in Iasi. The project was initiated by the Iasi-based ARTIS association and the MIA Community Association in Chisinau and is organized by the City Hall of the Municipality of Iasi and the Iasi Athenaeum, under the Centennial 2017 – 2020 programme.

Co-organizer of the event, which will unfold over one year period, is AGERPRES National News Agency, and the event is carried out in collaboration with the Association of Journalist Students in Iasi.

Andrei Giurgia, project manager, Romania, commented in the project launching press conference on the support which the event has enjoyed from “the most important names of the Romanian cinematography.” He thanked for the involvement to all those who contributed to the “Romanian Film Centennial” project, which he called a “historic” one.

Film director Igor Cobileanski, project manager, Republic of Moldova, underscored that to the citizens from across the Prut River this project represents the possibility of watching Romanian films.

“There will be a film exchange and we thus have the occasion to reiterate that we are part of the same whole, that we are the same great Romanian family,” Cobileanski said.

Attending the launching conference, film critic Irina Margareta Nistor, cinema ambassador within the project, said that the films made before 1989, presented in the Romanian Film Centennial, are pictures that “don’t have a bizarre ideological load, but films that can be seen with the same affection at any time.”

“Each picture will be accompanied by a filmmaker. It is not just the idea to mark the 100 years, but the possibility to create the only allowed addiction, namely that on cinematography,” Irina Margareta Nistor said.

Iasi Municipality Deputy Mayor Radu Botez said that for the city it is an honor to be able to organize such an event.

“This project has a national and international dimension and provides us with the opportunity to recollect the manner in which our identity as Romanians was built. (…) This is a project showing that Iasi sets the start again,” Daniel Sandru, coordinator of the Centennial Programme with the Iasi Municipality Hall, underscored in turn.

Attending at the event, AGERPRES National News Agency Director General Alexandru Giboi pointed out that the institution would be present within the project with the documentary “The Great Union: Romania 100 Years On” – a journalistic-cinematographic production, “a film built as an antithesis.”

“It is a promise of mine – that of trying to support the actions that bring plus value to the society. In a year when major, epic projects are lacking, the National News Agency supports a truly epic project, a project that has all the ingredients that will turn it in one of this year’s emblems,” Alexandru Giboi underscored.

Iasi Athenaeum Director Andrei Apreotesei also showed that the “Romanian Film Centennial” represents “a project that unites institutions and people, that ensures a good visibility to Iasi and that is ranked among the very important projects which the city is offering.”

The first film screened in the cinema production caravan is Igor Cobileanski’s “Eastern Business.” The entry is free.

The cinema productions will be presented in 100 cities of Romania, the Republic of Moldova and the Cernauti region, among which Iasi, Chisinau, Cernauti, Bucharest, Timisoara, Brasov, Sibiu or Cluj-Napoca. The films have been selected by film critics, directors and historians. At the end of the project, the organizers plan to edit an honorary book including each stop of the Romanian Film Caravan, with messages from the guest actors.

AGERPRES is present in the project with the documentary “The Great Union: Romania 100 Years On,” which will premier on February 22, in Bucharest, as well as with the photo exhibition “Romania: Evolution – Special Centennial Edition.”

Source: nineoclock.ro