Oustanding titles, important guests, photo exhibitions and special screenings are about to conquer the town of Cluj-Napoca, the heart of Transilvania, for TIFF 2005 is about to open its gates for movie fans and volunteers all over the world.

The festival, member of Central and Eastern European Film Festivals Alliance, is organized by Romanian Film Promotion, and will take place between May 27th - June 5th 2005.

Festival opening will show Korean film Oldboy, awarded awarded Cannes 2004' Grand Prize of the Jury and the Spanish production Mar adentro, Oscar winner for the Best Foreign Film, directed by Alejandro Amenabar will be the closing film.

Among the special guests waited to confirm their arrival in Cluj are Lukas Moodysson, one of the top directors in Sweden, to present his last film "A Hole in My Heart" and Todd Solondz, who will attend the screening of his last movie, "Palindromes", as well. TIFF previously showed three Lukas Moodyson productions: "Lilya 4 ever", "Fucking Amal" and "Together", highly rated by the audience.

The members of this edition's International Jury that will grant Transilvania Trophy for the best film in Competition are: British producer Keith Griffiths, Belgrade Film Festival Artistic Director, Miroljub Vuckovic, Hungarian director Andras Fesos and The Romanian-born, German actress Alexandra Maria Lara.

Supernova section of the Festival announced outstanding films like Iciar Bollain's "Take my Eyes" (Spain), the documentary "Spellbound" , "Kinsey", "Agnes and His Brothers" (Germany) and "Hawaii, Oslo" (Norway).

Among the 12 Competition titles organizers mention the upcoming Cannes titles from "Un certain regard" section: Romania's "The Death of Mister Lazarescu", directed by Cristi Puiu, and "Johanna" by Cornel Mundruczo (Hungary).

Shadows sections, destined to horror movies will present "The Machinist", a frightening thriller featuring Christian Bale and "The Ring 2", the sequel of the 2002 blockbuster, starring Naomi Watts.

This years, the film-makers honored in the "3x3 section" are Roy Andersson and Alejandro Amenabar.

The No Limit section will present titles like "Palindromes", "Nine Songs" or "Marebito".

TIFF 2005 also has a section dedicated to the British cinema screening Mike Leigh's "Vera Drake", "Layer Cake""or "Enduring Love".

A premiere in Cluj is also the presence of a FIPRESCI jury who will judge 10 films from Festival's program, not being awarded in other international festivals.


TIFF special events

One of Berlin Film Festival's greatest hits - "Lost and Found" project - will be dedicated a special evening. All six directors of the short movies included in this project are expected to come to Cluj alongside Nikolai Nikitin, one of "Lost and "Found" initiators.

A special screening will be dedicated to "Sex Traffic", a two-part TV drama for Channel 4. The movie was shot in Romania, London and Canada, and already won two BAFTA's this year for Best Drama and Best Actress - awarded to Romanian actress Anamaria Marinca, who is expected at Cluj.

Well known for its side-events and parties, Transilvania International Film Festival is one of the first young festivals to pay attention to talented youngsters willing to learn to make movies.
Let's Go Digital is a new intensive workshop aimed to select 15 young amateurs from all over Romania, in order to teach them how to make a film using digital video techniques. Initial training will be provided by Carl Schonfeld from Raindance UK program.

Alongside film seminars, a series of exhibitions of photography and a selection of film-related books will be also hosted at TIFF's 4th edition.