Slovak Cocktail from NISI MASA on Vimeo.

by Cristina Grosan

Nisimazine Cannes 2010 from NISI MASA on Vimeo.

by Cristina Grosan

Cristian Pascariu is a 4th year student of the very young Theatre and Television school in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. In his short film Deaf rock’n’roll, a deaf woman tries to reconnect with her rock-star son after abandoning him 35 years ago. While she goes to his concert she has to face her fears and a world which doesn’t understand her. The first filmmaker from the Cluj school to be selected in official competition at the Transylvanian International Film Festival (TIFF), Cristian fought hard to get his short to the big screen. Here’s how.

by Cristina Grosan

Last year, the Rotterdam Film Festival did something that changed the city’s landscape for ten days. The festival’s Size Matters section commissioned Guy Maddin, Carlos Reygadas and Nanouk Leopold to make three films that were screened on the facades of the tallest buildings in town. Cinema took over the skyscrapers, turning Rotterdam into a sort of City of Cinema with a Blade Runner feel to it (see right): huge images waving from up high, like huge holes on the buildings leading to a world of mystery and amazement. As it was placed over the buildings’ windows, the notion of the film screen being a different sort of window – one that lets us see into another dimension: fiction – was certainly there, showing Isabella Rossellini twitched on an electric chair in Guy Maddin’s disturbing short Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair a blend of S&M stag, Caligari, and Metropolis.

Agnès Varda from Eftihia Stefanidi on Vimeo.