Festival Guests and Little Helpers

T minus 1, folks!  And the first Festival Guests are already in London.

Nothing says you’re actually starting a Festival better than the arrival of the first guests. This morning, we had the pleasure to receive the Cannes 2012 award-winning actresses Cosmina Stratan and Cristina Flutur, as well as the President of the National Centre of Cinematography, Eugen Serbanescu.

I could not miss the chance to snap a photo with the two Festival Guest Stars in the hotel lobby.

Ramona Mitrica, Cosmina Stratan and Cristina Flutur

Soon after this, we went back on the less glamorous side of event organising. In short, we did a spot of physical labour and assembled all the materials needed at the cinema in the following days.

It's so fun to be in a lift with a couple of very heavy boxes.

There’re so many of them, not least the Festival Goody Bags. Not only do we have various promotional gifts from our sponsors, but the bags are also filled with love.

This edition of the Festival, like the others before it, is nothing if not a labour of love.  I should actually say love and admiration for the superlative achievements of Romanian film directors, actors, editors and producers, who created some of the best cultural exports the country has ever produced (or at least that’s my personal opinion).

We also did some shopping for the Festival Reception. No efforts were spared, and we came out in force, also bringing our little helpers with us.

The Official Festival Little Helper

We are looking forward to welcoming more special Romanian guests tomorrow - not to mention our audience for the sold out Gala Screening of Beyond the Hills by Cristian Mungiu.

For those of you who haven’t managed to get a ticket for tomorrow, Thu 22 Nov, you are more than welcome to come and see the other films in the programme screened at Renoir: Principles of Life by Constantin Popescu (Fri 23), Everybody in Our Family by Radu Jude (Sat 24), and Periferic by Bogdan George Apetri (Sun 25). Book online from http://www.curzoncinemas.com/events/f1uqf/romanian-film-festival/

Don’t forget we also have a connected event at the EBRD, on Mon 26 Nov: a screening of Medal of Honour by Calin Peter Netzer, in the presence of actor extraordinaire Victor Rebengiuc. Entrance is free but booking is mandatory EBRDevents@ebrd.com

Festival full programme on www.rofilmfest.com

As an aside – London is a very competitive arena for international film screening, and a sold out screening is something to be proud of. There is so much choice here for the cinephile, with many national film festivals going on this November: French, Czech, Irish, Iranian, Latin America, African, Jewish, Korean.

There is also the Nordic Film Festival, which starts on 30 November, bringing some of the best productions from the Scandinavian countries. After our Festival, this looks like a good choice for the lover of cinema of the highest order.