What to do this weekend

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

HALLOWEEN PARTY

Bankers Night Out

World Trade Plaza Pullman

November 1, 23.00

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Bankers Night Out is holding a private Halloween circus, to which eccentrics from the industry are welcome. The fun starts on November 1, at World Trade Plaza Pullman, from 23.00. To attend, register through your office email (bankers only).

PERFORMANCE

Tom Jones Concert

Sala Palatului

November 1, 20.00

After almost two years since his last concert in Bucharest, on Friday, November 1, from 20.00, Sir Tom Jones comes back to Romania, to promote his latest album, Spirit in The Room.

The 73-year-old Welsh legend is happy to be back on stage after completing his second season as a mentor on The Voice UK. He explains watching all these young things perform onstage during the show gave him the itch to get back on the road. More information about this subject, here.

George Enescu’s violin

Sala Radio

Friday, November 1, from 19.00

Violinist Gabriel Croitoru and pianist Horia Mihail will present the latest edition of the national tour “George Enescu’s violin in villages”, with an urban stop in Bucharest. The show consists of parts signed by Enescu, Saint-Saens, Massenet and others.

The National Theatre Festival

Several locations

Until November 3

The National Theater Festival is the most important theatrical event organized in the capital of Romania, and an occasion for the audience to watch the best performances of the season. The full program of the event can be seen here.

FILM PREMIERE

A Very Unsettled Summer

November 1

The real outsider on the NRC’s landscape is the English-language A Very Unsettled Summer, the dramatization of a short story by author Philip O Ceallaigh, an Irish writer who has lived in Bucharest since the early 2000s and was also one of the copy editors of Business Review during those years.

Director Anca Damian, who wrote the screenplay along with O Ceallaigh, chose an international cast which includes two Romanian rising stars – Ana Ularu (Maria) and Diana Cavaliotti (Irina) – and Game of Thrones actor Jamie Sives in the role of a Scottish journalist (Daniel) who lives in Bucharest.

In the part of the narrator and confidant of the main characters, Maria and Daniel, is Danish actor Kim Bodnia. The plot is constructed around the Maria-Daniel-Irina love triangle and the idea of the fictionalization of reality, a postmodern view on storytelling, spiced up with several erotic scenes.

The film falls, as I’ve mentioned, outside the realism box and its “slice of life” aesthetics and can be put in the same category as Porumboiu’s Metabolism. More about Romanian’s movies, here.

EXHIBITION

Polka Folk

The National Peasant Museum

Until December 1

A collective of young Polish designers presents the Polska Folk exhibition, which includes furniture, lighting, graphics, products and architecture influenced by traditional Polish folk patterns and craft techniques.

The 19 objects from the exhibition are inspired from the Polish traditional art, handicrafts and decorative art, with the materials used by the designers being genuine and local. The exhibition is organized at the initiative of the Polish Institute in Bucharest. More details about this event, here.

Invasion 68 Prague

Annex MNAC (Calea Mosilor no. 62-68, 3rd floor)

For the first time in Bucharest, the well-known photographer Josef Koudelka will present Invasion 68 Prague, an exhibition that presents the historical moments of August 1968. During those days, the thirty years old photographer realised a series of photos, which he later managed to take out of the country, when he immigrated to France. The photos were published by Magnum Photos agency one year later, in 1969, in many international magazines, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the invasion, without the author’s name. In the same year, Koudelka was honored with “the Czech anonymous photographer” award with Robert Capa golden medal from Overseas Press Club. Josef Koudelka, one of the most prominent contemporary photographers in the world, has been recognized as the author of the photographs only in 1985, after his father, who was still in Czechoslovakia, died. More information about this event, here.

100 miniatures chairs

Promenada Mall Bucharest

100 miniatures of classical seats which convey the history of the chair, from the Industrial Revolution to the artistic experimentation, will be exhibited at Promenada Mall, the latest mall in Bucharest, on the occasion of the opening of a new Cărturești Library.

The exhibition will unveil 100 fascinating prototypes of classical seats dating from between approx.1800 to 1990, presented in terms of nine chronological groups. Faithful reproductions of drawings, photographs and catalogues illustrate the path of development of the seats, from the first draft via production to their actual use. The exhibition offers a fantastic opportunity for those who wish to be part of an aesthetic universe closely linked to the art history over the last two centuries. More information about this event, here.

Visual Power: 21st Century Native American Artists/ Intellectuals

America 24/7

The National Library

The American Bucharest Corner was inaugurated on June 20 at the National Library and two exhibitions take place: “Visual Power: 21st Century Native American Artists/ Intellectuals.” which shows Native American contributions as scholars, professors, museum curators, and writers as well as makers of traditional fine arts, video and photography to document their cultural heritage and their struggle for sovereignty and a second poster exhibit, “America 24/7”, accompanied by a book, the result of a project by American author and publisher, David Elliot Cohen, and American photographer, Rick Smolan.  More than 25,000 digital photographers across the U.S. – including 36 Pulitzer Prize winners – responded to the invitation to take pictures of their towns, families, neighbors and friends for 24 hours a day for seven days.  The best photos capturing the diverse authentic America were included in the exhibit. More details, here.

Q.E.D. by Mircea Cantor

The National Museum of Contemporary Art

Until April 2014

More than 1,200 people have attended the opening of the first local solo exhibition of one of the most important young artists to emerge on the international scene over the last decade: Mircea Cantor, winner of the Prix Marcel Duchamp Award 2011. The QED exhibition, the largest survey of the artist’s works to date, comprises 30 pieces. More details here.

Oana Vasiliu