{"id":242860,"date":"2025-02-05T11:19:28","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T10:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visionsdureel.ch\/?post_type=invite-special&p=242860"},"modified":"2025-04-24T16:17:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T14:17:03","slug":"corneliu-porumboiu","status":"publish","type":"invite-special","link":"https:\/\/www.visionsdureel.ch\/en\/programme\/invite-special\/corneliu-porumboiu\/","title":{"rendered":"Corneliu Porumboiu"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Visions du R\u00e9el was delighted to announce that Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu was the Special Guest for the 56th edition of the Festival (4 \u2013 13 April). Corneliu Porumboiu’s appearance at this edition of the Festival was celebrated with a masterclass<\/a> and a retrospective<\/a> of all his feature-length works. Imbued with dark humour, Corneliu Porumboiu’s films played with the absurdity integral to Romanian society, which threw off the yoke of communism with the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu and the revolution of 1989, instantly supplanting it with unbridled capitalism. Composed of major works, his filmography made Porumboiu one of the most well-loved and respected European filmmakers of the 21st century.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

An essay on Corneliu Porumboiu’s work<\/a>, written by James Lattimer, is published in the Journal des invit\u00e9\u00b7e\u00b7s<\/a>.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Born in Vaslui (Romania) in 1975, Corneliu Porumboiu has released thirteen films (including 6 shorts), during a career which spans almost twenty years. He made a name for himself on the international scene with his first feature length film, 12:08 East of Bucharest<\/em>, winner of the prestigious Cam\u00e9ra d\u2019Or at the Festival de Cannes in 2006. His feature films, which include Police, Adjective <\/em>(2009) and The Treasure<\/em> (2015), were also praised by critics and earned awards at Cannes, further consolidating his position as a talented storyteller and as one of the greats of new Romanian cinema \u2013 alongside Cristi Puiu, Lucian Pintilie, Radu Jude, Andrei Ujica or Cristian Mungiu.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inspired by a realistic, political approach, Porumboiu’s cinema scrutinises Romania’s recent social history, mischievously taking on its sometimes tragicomic dimension. Through dialogues infused with deadpan humour, and a discreet yet rigorous aesthetic which uses carefully composed frames and long takes, he crafts a meticulous observation of characters perplexed as they struggle to both understand a deliberately opaque reality and try to gain some sort of fulfilment from it. His most recent feature film, The Whistlers<\/em> (2019) \u2013 which was screened as part of Cannes\u2019 Un Certain Regard competition \u2013, a dark, captivating paranoid thriller, was another critical success, and confirmed the Romanian filmmaker’s love for the absurd \u2013 an aspect he sees as an integral part of his country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corneliu Porumboiu is also interested in the world of football, a highly personal subject since his father was a professional referee at international level. In The Second Game<\/em> (2014), father and son commentate, within a minimalist setting, on a match from 1988 refereed by the father, in a snowstorm, under the eye of the Romanian propaganda TV cameras. His other documentary, Infinite Football<\/em> (2018), is a deep dive into his home city of Vaslui, in the company of a childhood friend, now a bureaucrat in local government and obsessed with one idea: improving the rules of football or replacing it with a new, more equitable sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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