Scenes from the life of an event producer

Once again, a busy and exciting day before the start of a festival. Not too many people know that working on film festivals is not just an office job, and that it also involves lots of running around. Today’s been that sort of day – and I’m not complaining.

The large size posters of the Festival, those that go outside the cinema, came out of the printers’ today, and the best way to get them at the cinema is to pick them up yourself - which is exactly what I did.

Portrait of the event producer as a young man

The upside to this is that you get to meet face to face with the people you are in touch normally by phone or e-mail, and have a little planning chat while the posters are displayed (call it a watercooler moment, without the water). This would be the time and place to say a big thank you to Curzon’s Laura Kloss and duty managers Sean and Phil for being so cool about it.

On the other hand, it is quite exciting to see your work displayed and (hopefully) appreciated by people. Call me a softy, but I always get weak knees when the Festival posters are put up.

Looks rather nice, doesn't it?

Another very exciting thing that came to pass today was that the Festival’s facebook page (Facebook.com/RoFilmFest) not only reached 1,000 Likes, but went above this mark. Here’s to going stronger and reaching 1,500 by the time we start on 22 November with the gala screening of Cristian Mungiu’s amazing Beyond the Hills, at the Renoir Cinema in Bloomsbury.

Since we are talking about this, a little bird told me that the Gala Screening is now completely sold out!

Congrats and a great cheers to everybody who bought their tickets in advance. It goes without saying I am pretty chuffed about this, but I can’t help feeling a bit sorry for all our friends who will not be able to be with us for this event.

My gracious source also informed me that the other films in the Festival, which are screened at Renoir, are also selling fast – Principles of Life by Constantin Popescu (Fri 23 Nov), Everybody in Our Family by Radu Jude Sat 24 Nov), and Periferic by Bogdan George Apetri (Sun 25 Nov). They are all excellent films, chosen with great care from a pool of great new Romanian films, and they are well worth your attention.
See full programme on www.rofilmfest.com

There’s nothing easier than booking your tickets in advance. You can buy in person at the Renoir (The Brunswick, London WC1N 1AW; Tube: Russell Square), online on Curzon Cinemas’ website (http://www.curzoncinemas.com/events/f1uqf/romanian-film-festival) or by phone at 0330 500 1331.

I have to add here that if I'd done some running on this event, it's nothing compared with the huge amount of work put in by the Festival Director, Ramona Mitrica - please join me in saying a big thank you to her.

There will be more running in the next days, all for a good cause - this year's edition of the Romanian Film Festival in London. See you on the red carpet!

(Mihai Risnoveanu)

PS - It's also nice to see the Festival has a spread in Curzon Magazine (another reason to love this expertly made publication).