Romanian film review: BIEFF and The Stranger

Romania Insider · 12.10.2026, 15:33:15

Vanishing futures: this was the motto of the Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival (BIEFF) and its fantastic selection proposed new ways to imagine a future that seems now more blurred than ever. The festival wrapped on 30 September and it visited cinema Studio in Timișoara this past weekend. I could not have picked one screening to recommend over another (yes, that good!), but in the interest of keeping this column compact, I will pick a few titles that stayed with me. The winner of the national short film competition, Andreea Chiper’s Three Bedtime Stories/ Trei povești de noapte bună listens to three women talk about their lives and deceased husbands; playful, moving, perceptive. It was also the most wholesome common experience; there was so much laughter in the audience. The short is also available for free in Cinepub as well, and you can watch it here (in Romanian only): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLaWa1MMmc4&t=378s Alma Buhagiar’s In My Dreams, or in Ours (winner of Best Visual Concept) is a rapturous tale of eroticism and looking. Another beauty is Cosmin Nicolae’s Cherry Master , a story of loneliness in an eerie Bucharest by night. This was a great edition for visually striking colours and textures: I also loved Patri Preda and Alina Brăcaci’s Uprooting/ Dezrădăcinare , in which a daughter reflects on her her relationship with her mother. And then there is the avantgarde classics programme, amazing on a big screen, from the famous, multi-quoted Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943) and La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962, still one of the most ingenious, mind-boggling films ever made) to Artavazd Peleshian’s lyrical essay on the life of Armenian shepherds The Seasons (1975), or Peter Tscherkassky’ brain and eyeball-melting horror metafiction Outer Space (1999). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AALcMGHg9po Fresh in cinemas across the country and also in Timișoara (to stay here a bit longer) is François Ozon’s The Stranger/ L’ Étranger . Based