Sibiu prepares for Astra Film Festival

Astra Film – Sibiu International Documentary Festival will take place between 6 – 12 October 2014, and for its 21st edition 1.400 films from 90 countries were signed up, out of which 120 films from 40 countries have been selected in the official program.

Astra Film Festival 2014 has four competition sections. The International one gathers the newest films all over the world, directed by authors like Frederick Wiseman, Michel Gondry or Corneliu Porumboiu. The films from East and Central Europe section tackle subjects which define the region’s identity and portray realities unknown even to neighboring countries. The Student section allows the entrance of productions of young authors from the great university centers of Geneva, Manchester, London, Munchen, Budapest, Bucharest or San Antonio de los Baños (Cuba). This year’s latest Romanian productions will be released in the Romanian section. Along with the competition sections, there will also be a series of special programs which will complete the 2014 Astra Film Festival edition. The complete program can be found here.

The opening film will be Dear Pyongyang, directed by Zainichi Korean director Yang Yong-hi. The documentary is the family story of the director. In the 1970s, Yang’s father, an ardent communist and leader of the pro-North movement in Japan, sent his three sons from Japan to North Korea under a repatriation campaign sponsored by ethnic activist organization and de facto North Korean embassy Chongryon; as the only daughter, Yang herself remained in Japan. However, as the economic situation in the North deteriorated, the brothers became increasingly dependent for survival on the care packages sent by their parents. The film shows Yang’s visits to her brothers in Pyongyang, as well as conversations with her father about his ideological faith and his regrets over breaking up his family.

Astra Film Festival is a promoter of the documentary film and it brought the latest Romanian and international productions on the big screen, since 1993. AFF is the festival which has popularized the non-fictional film in Romania and it has brought to light present-day human realities.