Dance, the main character of Bucharest International Dance Film Festival #9

The Tangaj Collective association announces the 9th edition of the Bucharest International Dance Film Festival (BIDFF), which will take place between September 7 and 10, 2023. The festival offers over 20 events: feature and short film screenings, VR experiences, performance -s, but also workshops dedicated to the community of artists in Bucharest or activities for the elderly and children from vulnerable backgrounds. A platform dedicated to movement and dance and how it is reflected in film and art, BIDFF #9 aims to present productions that address interconnected topics of ecology, technology, body transformations and connections between past and future.

This year’s theme focuses on the concept of Clusters. Simona Deaconescu, choreographer and BIDFF artistic director explains: “I started from the philosopher W. V. O. Quine’s premise that no individual belief can be confirmed or disproved in isolation, but must be evaluated within a larger network of beliefs. Thus, BIDFF wants to create a space for dialogue and exchange of experiences, an alternative to social division. For four days, dancers, choreographers, visual artists, directors, creators of virtual reality, theorists and producers are engaged in the events of BIDFF #9, structured in five sections that communicate with each other and are characterized by diversity, multiplicity and openness.”

At the heart of the festival is the BIDFF Films section which includes four feature films in which movement, dance and the body are central subjects.

Starring the unmistakable Rossy de Palma (one of director Pedro Almodovar’s fetish actresses) and Paul Mescal (Aftersun, Normal People) in the cast, Carmen (dir. Benjamin Millepied, 2022, Australia / France) is an intense love story told on written beats by Nicholas Britell (composer of the Succession series soundtrack), in flamenco steps and contemporary dance. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022.

Smoked Sauna Sisterhood earned Estonian director Anna Hints the World Cinema Directing Award at Sundance 2023. An intimate portrait of a group of women who meet in a sauna to share their secrets, the film is a display of strength, fragility and femininity. The program also includes the documentary Leave the Bones (dir. Kaveh Nabatian, Canada/Haiti, 2022), a sensory film about Haitian rituals, from the oldest to the modern ones, made in collaboration with poets, dancers, musicians, fishermen, daredevil skaters and Vodou priests and accompanied by lyrics by Haitian author Wood-Jerry Gabriel.

A feel-good film about a musical theater camp in New York, Theater Camp (dir. Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman, USA, 2023) stars Tony Award-winning actor Ben Platt and newly nominated actress Ayo Edebiri at the Emmy for his role in The Bear. When their camp is in danger of closing due to financial problems, a group of eccentric teachers and students mobilize to create an amazing show to keep them afloat.

Another component of BIDFF Films – the International Short Film Competition, where the world’s best short films featuring and about dance will compete for festival prizes, will be announced soon.

The festival program includes 4 other sections: BIDFF VR, which paves the way for immersive experiences; BIDFF Expand, in which artists such as Sarah Vanhee, Flor Firvida Martin and Ioana Vreme Moser explore collective cries, violence against women and the danger of electronic component degradation. Through a masterclass, Heike Salzer explores the fluid borders between performance, film and ecology.

In BIDFF Exchange, the performance Amebas Traidoras and the selection of dance films CineDanza de Buenos Aires discuss power relations between members of a community. Also, a special selection of dance animations will be presented in collaboration with Animest. In BIDFF Community, the public is invited to discover historical places where the music of Bucharest developed and brings the dance film closer to the communities of the elderly and the children of Ferentari.

The hosts and partners of BIDFF #9 are Cinema Elvire Popesco, Garden with Films – Cinema & More, the Bucharest National Dance Center, /SAC @ MALMAISON, LINOTIP – Independent Choreographic Center and the Residential Center for the Elderly “Amalia and Chief Rabbi Dr. Moses Rosen “.