What to do this weekend

At a loose end? BR brings you the best of Bucharest’s cultural highlights for the weekend ahead.

CLASSICAL MUSICAL

Antique Violins festival

Radio Hall

April 11, 19.00 – Romanian George Cosmin Banica, concertmaster of the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, will perform at the festival with the Galiano violin. Together with pianist Razvan Dragnea, they will interpret compositions signed by Tchaikovsky, Enescu, Stravinsky and Dvorak.

April 12, 19.00 – The “Antique Violin” festival will be closed by an event that will bring together the Romanian violinist Gabriel Croitoru with his instrument that belonged to George Enescu, conductor Tiberiu Soare and the National Radio Orchestra in an evening of Russian music with Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev.

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FILM

Next International Film Festival

Cinema Studio, Cinema Corso, Cinema Patria

Until April 14

The well-known festival presents some premieres this year, as projections from the Aubagne International Film Festival, the short films from the program Short Matters! of the European Film Academy EFA, or the Semaine de la critique section of the Cannes Film festival. Tickets for the evening cost RON 15. Subscriptions for the entire festival are RON 80, and can be bought online here. Tickets can also be bought from participating cinemas, Studio, Corso and Patria, as well as from the English bookshop Anthony Frost.

EXHIBITION

Cocinando al pie de la letra/ Books and Dishes

Cervantes Institute

Until May 16

“Cocinando al pie de la letra/ Books and Dishes” is an exhibition held by poetess Yolanda Castano and photographer Andrea Costas, a photographic journey between literature, cuisine and art.

The Human Body

Antipa Museum

Until June 30

One of the most realistic exhibitions in the world, The Human Body, will stop for the first time in Bucharest, at Antipa Museum, from March 22 to June 30.  The exhibition includes more than 200 pieces – human bodies which through dissection of organs and tissue offer a three dimensional perspective of the miracle of the human body.

Common Nostalgia

Pavilion Unicredit (36 C.A. Rosetti)

Until July 7

In the exhibition “Common nostalgia”, which will be open between April 4 and July 7, the artists started from the premise that the subjectifying of the loss and the objectifying of the feeling of losing something that could reduce the consistency of the nostalgic type of living, because the exhibited works assume to reach all means of the idea of nostalgia. From “love”, a feeling coming from a casual past, which becomes the subject of what can be assimilated, to the “nostalgia” of the family memories, micro cosmos, of a place with your own people. (“Ostalgia” is a sociological german term coming from “nostalgia” and “ost” which means “east”, therefore nostalgia of the East, in its geopolitical meaning.

Curator: Eugen Rădescu. Participants: Dan Raul Pintea (RO), Ștefan Sava (RO), Nicolae Constantin Tănase (RO), Swel Noury (MAR)

Testimonials. The Frescoes from the Arges Monastery

National Museum of Art of Romania

Until May 26

The Arges Monastery, a flagship example of Romanian culture, was restored between 1875 and 1882 under the supervision of architect André Lecomte du Noüy, a practitioner of French conservationist principles. The original mural painting had to make room for an entirely new one: only 35 fragments were considered worth preserving. Some 31 of them were restored between 1990 and 2012 and are now on show together for the first time.

DISCOVER BUCHAREST

The Art Deco architecture of Domenii quarter – walking tour

April 13, 11.30-14.00

Reservations: v.mandache@gmail.com / 0040 (0)728.323.272

Tour available in Romanian and English, RON 30

The tour offers a guide through a quite special section of Bucharest, in the past housing a part of city’s elite, composed mainly from medium and high ranking government workers from the inter-war Ministry of Agriculture and State Domains, hence the name “Domains” (Domenii in Romanian) for this quarter. The area has been developed between the early 1920s and the late 1940s. The beauty of the architecture found in this corner of Bucharest, a large part of it developed during the years of the fascist dictatorship, war time and the dawn of the Stalinist regime, is a testimony to the resilience of the human spirit in the course of those adverse upheavals.

DOROBANTI area of Bucharest – Architectural walking tour

April 14, 11.30-14.00

Reservations: v.mandache@gmail.com / 0040 (0)728.323.272

Tour available in Romanian and English, RON 30

The tour offers a guide through one of the architecturally most distinguished areas of Bucharest, see the map bellow, second only to Kiseleff in its quality of historic buildings. Dorobanti is more than brimful with architectural wonders, ranging from the finest Neo-Romanian to Art Deco style houses or hybrids between the two, to many other architectural designs.

GOING OUT

Merci Charity Boutique (in picture)

Altogether different from the designer fashion boutiques across Bucharest, Merci Charity Boutique is the perfect place to discover hand-made items or enjoy a cup of aromatic tea – and all in a good cause. Located in the OldTown, just above French Bakery, Merci is Romania’s first boutique charity shop – a popular trend worldwide – bringing hope to the disadvantaged.

Address: Merci Charity Boutique is located in the Old Town, 13 Smardan Street, above French Bakery. It is open daily from 12.00 until the last customer.

Oana Vasiliu