Retro Party at Eforie Colorat, the largest open-air cinema on the Black Sea

Eforie Colorat proposes over 200 events, hosted throughout the summer (July 1 – September 1) at the Cinemascop Garden in Eforie Sud. Artists Meri The Zu and Reinier Landwehr will create a new monumental mural at the summer garden. From August 1 to August 11, the Cinemascop Festival dedicates each day to promoting the culture of a European country. Warm-Up on June 29, from 12.00 – 22.00, at Acuarela Bistro in Bucharest.

Waves, sun, and seaside views from summers, when dreams traveled with BTT, and the adventure began with Radio Vacanța! Sorin Lupașcu once set off from Costinești with a backpack filled with memories from Ring and Disco CH, tape reels, cables, microphones, and the emotions of thousands of young people who once listened to good music only at the disco. After a journey filled with films, premieres, exhibitions, and especially RetroParty meetings, Sorin Lupașcu arrives at the beginning of July in Eforie Sud to open a new season at the Eforie Colorat International Contemporary Art Hub. An iconic DJ evokes symbols from recent emotional history at the Cinemascop with BASF reels on a Rostov tape deck, disco balls, and ’80s glam with Stela Enache, Savoy, C.C. Catch, or Modern Talking.

“What more could you wish for when dancing than to hear the waves of the sea during breaks? We used to start the summer with young people eager to finish school and have fun, make new friends, learn dance steps, and escape the oppressive silence that weighed on us all. Years have passed, but the joy remains the same. I’m starting another season on the coast, this time in a setting I couldn’t have dreamed of before 1990 – film screenings, hundreds of well-informed young people in the musical field and cinema enthusiasts, and organizing teams I never imagined I could meet…”, said Sorin Lupașcu, Discotheque Presenter.

Access to the events included in this edition’s program is free. More information about the festival will be published on the event’s website and its official pages.

June 29 – EFORIE COLORAT & ACUARELA –  BUCHAREST BLAST

Warm-up. Eforie Colorat awaits you on Saturday, June 29, from 12.00-22.00, at Acuarela Bistro in Bucharest, where a series of events are scheduled as a preview of the seaside launch: Adina Albina coordinates illustration workshops for children, there will be creative writing courses provided by Greenpeace Romania, Short Film Breaks screenings, and a wine tasting (Caii de la Letea).

July 1 – Eforie Sud. Directors on Waves and Art by the Sea

Supported by European, national, and local cultural institutes, diplomatic missions, and international film festivals, Eforie Colorat is an alternative meeting space on the Black Sea and the first center dedicated to contemporary arts on the Romanian coast. Bringing together different genres and multidisciplinary visions, the fourth season brings new-wave artists to the creative laboratory in Eforie Sud, an open space for all forms of culture and the most diverse experiments in contemporary art. Starting July 1, the Cinemascop in Eforie Sud reopens for a summer of good movies, concerts, contemporary art exhibitions, workshops, and performance sessions.

“We open with a Retro Party inspired by movies, with disco balls, ’80s hits, and other symbols of recent emotional history. These are all milestones of Romanian society’s evolution in recent decades, a necessary recap series to understand a new development stage. In a decade that values collective identity and communities. The Eforie Cinemascop opens for 50 movie nights, where we’ve scheduled the most diverse productions, blockbusters, short films, animations, Romanian films, or iconic old films. As a contemporary art hub, we also have this year, the most interesting artists in residence in Eforie.

We have green culture and creative recycling projects – an attempt to talk about simplicity and nature in an era where technology changes everything, from the role and meaning of the artistic act to the sensitive matter it operates with. We have ideas and also provide a theoretical framework for development in debates, colloquiums, and performative interventions, a series of meetings designed to discuss various contemporary themes, from stopping aggression against nature, in the broader context of consumerist practices or geopolitical changes, to the long-term effects these will have on concepts of ecology and environmental responsibility. We are inspired by European currents, such as the New European Bauhaus – a new development model based on beauty, utility, and sustainability and, at the same time, a new attempt to demonstrate that art is the common language through which change can be achieved. We promote these principles and replicate them in everything we do. We open alternative spaces where creative communities meet their audience and use art and dialogue as ways to question society. We build, year after year, a cultural ecosystem dedicated to travelers, but especially to the local community, hoping that Eforie Colorat could become, over time, an emblematic event for Eforie Sud and, why not, one of the credible vectors of regional development,” say the founders of Eforie Colorat, Alexandra Dumitrescu and Emil Cristian Ghiță.

Five Contemporary Art Vernissages Open the Creative Hub Eforie Colorat

EFORIE SUD

JULY 1

19:00 Vernissages

21:00 RETRO PARTY

The Cinemascop Garden in Eforie Sud opens on Monday, July 1, at 19:00, with five exhibitions:

• E T A J on Wheels Gallery: Transformed by Mimi Pleșoianu into an immersive work, illustrating the idealized atmosphere of a dreamlike coastline: a world of saturated colors and foamy waves, illuminated by the sunrise. It’s a playful, timeless portal through which each of us can step into a cherished memory, where everything is sweet, bright, and nostalgic.
• Emil Cristian Ghiță’s Installation: Talks about ecology, using recycling as a method and glass packaging as material for artistic expression. Glass, a banal object with an ephemeral existence, evokes a state of grace in a fragile balance, easily destroyed. The viewer could become a creator of meaning, starting from the premise that each object used more than once becomes a little more than a consumable.
• Eco-performance “Art (and Ecology) at the Sea (Shore)” by Adrian Preda, Alina Marinescu, Andrei Turenici, Irina Maria Iliescu, and Meri The Zu. The works depict sad but very probable scenarios. The artists search for traces of modern civilization in turbulent waves or follow the path of species forever driven away by human proximity.
• Adrian Preda’s Series of Drawings: Accompanied by a moment of poetry. The special guest is Florin Dumitrescu, an author who speaks about nature without manifest tones, faithful only to a splendid spectacle of language and verse. His volume, Sentimentul Naturii, is a book where aesthetics elegantly assimilate ideology, letting poetry emanate beauty.
• 1MP Gallery: Alexandra Dumitrescu’s work “Landscape” – both iconic and narrative. Iconic because it illustrates Nature, in the romantic sense. Narrative because it tells a story, like in a black-and-white French film from the ’60s. We don’t know how the moment begins or ends, nor who the heroes or villains are.
• The party, animated by DJ Sorin Lupașcu starts at 21:00.

“Coastal areas are perhaps the most vulnerable in the face of the consumerist wave”

“We were delighted to hear, in recent years, that the very concept of beauty is supported and promoted by European institutions! The three principles of the New European Bauhaus movement – sustainability, inclusion, and aesthetics – are, in fact, directions for reimagining our future, a collective journey that we are invited to shape together. European urban and rural areas have defined their identity over centuries of shared history, reflected in buildings, landscapes, and stories. The ‘spirit of the place’ shapes how cities and regions take on missions related to the quality of life of their communities. In this broader system, coastal areas are perhaps the most vulnerable to many types of threats, but especially to the consumerist wave. The pressure of the idea of yield in the alternation of season/off-season and the enticing concept of carefree holidays have encouraged and justified irresponsible tourist exploitation for years.

On the Romanian coast, there are vacation resorts as well as small inhabited towns, and the latter have faced decades of depersonalization in search of a marketable formula. Perhaps it is time to bet on their real identities in the development process. For instance, let’s remember that Eforie Sud, formerly known as Carmen Sylva, was the first resort on the Romanian coast, a center for Bucharest and European elites, built with a special concern for aesthetics and therefore one of the most visited resorts on the continent. Have we forgotten this past? Eforie Colorat speaks precisely about this, about identities, good practices in tourism exploitation, new visions regarding the environment, and the role of culture in community development. It brings contemporary art into the local community and promotes creative recycling, sustainable growth, respect for the environment, and cultural diversity—values we believe in and cultivate as a priority. Together with other local entities, we are proud to now imagine programs to reduce the cultural access gap specific to communities in small towns and to engage people in educational endeavors that enhance group cohesion and a sense of collective well-being,” say the founders of Eforie Colorat, Alexandra Dumitrescu and Emil Cristian Ghiță.

Cinemascop Garden 2024, 4th Edition

Summer Program:

• Award-winning short films from the Short Film Breaks portfolio are among the 50 film screenings scheduled this year at Eforie Colorat.
• “Biography of Artist Couples,” a project developed by Dr. Ioana Marinescu, will feature film screenings and discussions about the reflection of life partners in extreme situations and how one emotionally assumes the work and art of the other. (July 19-21, 2024)
• 1MP Gallery adds to the summer offerings with contemporary art and photography exhibitions, along with a series of creative workshops. The gallery will host art exhibitions, photography, and contemporary art installations throughout the summer, featuring artists such as Adrian Preda, Alexandra Dumitrescu, Emil Cristian Ghiță, and Matei Emanuel, curated by Ioana Marinescu and Robert Băjenaru.
• The French Institute brings to Eforie Sud an eco-exhibition adapted from the comic book A World Without End, illustrating the long dialogue between authors Jean-Marc Jancovici and Christophe Blain. It’s a story about how energy has been used throughout history, tracing the rise of fossil fuels and their environmental impact, especially on the climate. The works also address possible solutions: clean energy, food, transportation, and urban planning. Since its publication in 2021, A World Without End has been a huge success, being the best-selling book in France in 2022 with over 800,000 copies, and translated into several languages. The French Institute aims to adapt this comic book to raise public awareness about the stakes of ecological transition. The network of French Institutes, French Alliances, and all partners of these organizations supports this effort.
• Art Machine – Mihai Zgondoiu. The Art Machine project encourages healthy consumption of art, providing exposure and financial support to the involved artists. Since July 2020, it has offered the public 47 series of original works. The 42 drawings in Art Machine are part of Mihai Zgondoiu’s project “#RIEN,” corresponding to the artist’s 42 years, celebrated in February 2024. The drawings were created specifically for Art Machine project #48.
• “Art (and Ecology) by the Sea” brings together stories about people and nature, signed by five of the most interesting visual artists of the moment: Irina Maria Iliescu, Alina Marinescu, Adrian Preda, Andrei Turenici, and Meri The Zu. The exhibition is curated by Ioana Marinescu.
• Greenpeace HotSpot. In partnership with Eforie Colorat, Greenpeace Romania opens an alternative relaxation, community organization, and information space inside the Cinemascop garden. Starting this summer, Greenpeace proposes film screenings on environmental themes, creative workshops for children and adults, and solidarity and awareness activities to protect the Black Sea’s biodiversity.

• Festival within the Festival! From August 1 to August 11, the Cinemascop Festival dedicates each day to promoting the culture of a European country. We will create new connections between people through films, creative workshops, cooking workshops, concerts, sports, and leisure activities. The meetings will take place both in the summer garden and on the beach.
• Artists Meri The Zu and Reinier Landwehr will create a large-scale mural, covering 100 sqm, on the back of the projection screen of the summer garden, a highly visible space in the city. The work complements the collection signed in previous years’ residencies by artists like Mircea Modreanu, project coordinator of E T A J artist-run space, Lucian Sandu Milea, co-founder of the Carol 53 project, alongside Ana Cristina Toma—known for exploring the intersectionality between decorative experiment, fashion, illustration, mural interventions in public and private spaces—or French artist Antoine Martinet, alias MioSHe, renowned for monumental works questioning the relationships between man, urban space, and nature. The series of interventions and murals in Eforie Sud was started by artists like Barbora Idesová (Czech Republic), Andreea Toma (ATOMA), and Robert Obert.

Eforie Colorat is a cultural hub opened in 2021 in Eforie Sud for the benefit of tourists and local community members, artistic communities, and national civic dialogue groups—annually providing a series of creative residencies at the Black Sea. Initiated by the Visual Arts Forum, in partnership with the Czech Center and the Eforie City Hall, the Eforie Colorat program aims to promote a set of best practices for development in areas with limited access to culture, raise the level of education and awareness on environmental issues, and revitalize community meeting spaces on the Black Sea coast. Eforie Colorat aims to be an alternative inspiration space for the artistic community, local and central administration decision-makers, and a meeting point for specialists and civic groups, in a joint effort to identify current solutions for urban regeneration, creative ecology, ethical and coherent tourism potential exploitation, circular economy, civic spirit, sustainable development, and growth opportunities through culture in marginalized areas.