For the third consecutive year, a non-European feature has won the Transilvania Trophy, the main award of the Transilvania International Film Festival (31 July – 9 August, Cluj-Napoca). The winning film of the 19th edition is Shannon Murphy’s Babyteeth (Australia), which has also won the Audience Award. The film will be distributed in Romania later this year by local distributor Bad Unicorn.

The 19th edition of TIFF was held exclusively in open air venues, and for the last three days of the festival, wearing a mask became mandatory even in open air venues. A total of approximately 45,000 tickets were sold at the 232 night screenings (compared to circa 400 last year) in 14 locations in and around Cluj-Napoca. The 2020 selection comprised 157 features and short films from 49 countries.

The jury consisting of producer Ada Solomon, director Adina Pintilie, actor-director András Hatházi, playwright Csaba Székely and writer Philip O Ceallaigh chose to give two Best Director Awards: to Belgian-Dutch drama Patrick [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Tim Mielants
scheda film], directed by Tim Mielants, and Chinese experimental film The Cloud In Her Room, by Zheng Lu Xinyuan. Svetla Tsotsorkova’s Sister [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Svetla Tsotsorkova
scheda film] (Bulgaria/Qatar) received the Special Jury Prize.

The FIPRESCI Award, which was handed out for the first time to a film in the Romanian Days competition, went to Romanian-Ukrainian documentary Everything Will Not Be Fine [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Helena Maksyom
scheda film], by Adrian Pîrvu and Helena Maksyom.

Here is the complete list of awards handed out at the festival’s 19th edition:

Competition

Transilvania Trophy
Babyteeth - Shannon Murphy (Australia)

Best Director (ex aequo)
Tim Mielants - Patrick [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Tim Mielants
scheda film] (Belgium/Netherlands)
Zheng Lu Xinyuan - The Cloud In Her Room (China)

Special Jury Prize
Sister [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Svetla Tsotsorkova
scheda film] - Svetla Tsotsorkova (Bulgaria/Qatar)

Best Performance
Evgeniya Gromova - Fidelity (Russia)

Audience Award
Babyteeth - Shannon Murphy (Australia)

Romanian Days

Best Feature
Acasă, My Home [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Radu Ciorniciuc
scheda film] - Radu Ciorniciuc (Romania)

Best First Feature
Legacy [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Dorian Boguţă (Romania)

Special Mention
Ivana the Terrible [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Ada Solomon
scheda film] - Ivana Mladenovic (Romania/Serbia)

Best Short Film
Kaimos - Sara Tsorakidis (Romania)

FIPRESCI Award
Everything Will Not Be Fine [+leggi anche:
recensione
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intervista: Helena Maksyom
scheda film] - Adrian Pîrvu, Helena Maksyom (Romania/Ukraine)

Audience Award
So, What's Freedom? [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film] - Andrei Zincă (Romania/USA)