The theme of this year at Cluj Never Sleeps is `Connecting Realities`, an original concept that aims to bring art, nature, technology and people in the same place, a concept that fits perfectly with KI and Primavera, the two installations that the students from Digital Interactive Arts master program created. This exhibition is coordinated and curated by Adelina-Laura Bulibașa, visiting assistant professor in the master program and Florin Adrian Marc, master student in this program

“Ki” (tree in Japanese) is an interactive installation in which the public can drastically influence the mood and atmosphere of the scene by means of movement. The installation tackles currently developing environmental issues, such as deforestation, pollution and destroying the natural habitats of various species. The audience members have the power to protect or to destroy a solitary tree that’s being surrounded by alien structures, by positioning themselves on the left or right side of the screen. This project is made by Andrei Boar, coordinated by Klaus Obermaier and Cristina Pop-Tiron.

Primavera is an interactive installation which draws inspiration from the legend of the Roman goddess Flora. She is considered to be the goddess of flowers and gardens, representing the eternal rebirth of vegetation in spring. In this installation, you can take the role of the goddess of flowers, and you receive her power to manipulate flowers. The project is made by Andrei Panghe, coordinated by Rodica Mocan.

Renowned director Radu Jude, associate professor of our faculty, released his latest film “Potemkiniștii” at the Cannes International Film Festival. Selected for the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs programme, the short film is constructed as a dialogue between a sculptor (Alexandru Dabija) and a Ministry of Culture official (Cristina Drăghici), who discuss the construction of an anti-communist monument referring to the entry of the Russian battleship Potemkin into the port of Constanța. References to Sergei Eisenstein’s famous 1925 film are the highlight of the characters’ polemics. An audiovisual essay, both critical and comic, on the ideological and cinematic ways of editing history, “Potemkiniștii” will be released in Romania on 1 July under the title Almanah Cinema. Șase filme scurte, together with other short films by Radu Jude (Caricaturana, Amintiri de pe Frontul de Est, Cele două execuții ale Mareșalului, A pedepsi, a supraveghea and Plastic semiotic).

https://www.quinzaine-realisateurs.com/en/film/potemkinistii

Digital Interactive Arts is a master program part of Faculty of Theater and Film from Babeș-Bolyai University, that offers a multidisciplinary, innovative and comprehensive approach to media arts production. Inside the Innowave Summit 2022, the Fluctuations of Chroma project can be found inside the Digital Innovation Hub stand.  

Location: Seminar Room, Central, Faculty of Theatre and Film

Agenda

11-13 Specific issues to non-fiction film production and financing

13-14 Break

14-16 Individual and group discussions on personal projects

With a background in choreography and cultural management, Anamaria Antoci stepped into the film industry in 2012. Her first feature was Adrian Sitaru’s Illegitimate (2016, Berlinale Forum – C.I.C.A.E. Award), an independent production that brought her a GOPO Award for Best Newcomer in the Romanian film industry. Her filmography includes a wide range of shorts, features and documentaries, one of the latest titles – Malmkrog by Cristi Puiu, for which she served as delegate producer, opened the Encounters section of Berlinale 2020. Anamaria is active on the European market, being part of the most important industry networks like EAVE Producers Workshop, EFP’s Cannes Producers on the Move, ACE Producers, Emerging Producers, European Producers Club, and since 2016 she is a member of the European Film Academy.

I Watch, Therefore I Think. This paraphrase to the famous Cartesian dictum hides one of the most impenetrable paradoxes of film-philosophy, which is not to determine if the thinking cinematic machine really exists, but how to enter the inscrutable relationship established between the mind of the protagonist, that of the moviemaker and the individual spectators. The intricate question is who does the thinking at the movies and what is going on in the mind of that thinking entity. Doru Pop, Romanian Cinema: Thinking Outside the Screen

Published in November 2021 by the prestigious Bloomsbury Academic, Doru Pop’s book on the “Romanian cinematic mind” as seen within the broader frame of European cinema thinking, focuses on the philosophical expressions of contemporary cinema. Scholastic and culturally informed, philosophical and erudite, the volume touches on neuroscience to articulate how cinematic thinking is formed, exploring the works of the collective psyche in the modern world.

The book aims at contextualising the place of Romanian national cinema within the larger European art of filmmaking, and provides specific case studies on recent productions such as Proroca (2017) and Touch Me Not (2018). By looking into the works of renowned directors like Cristi Puiu, Cristian Mungiu, Corneliu Porumboiu or Adina Pintilie and Constantin Popescu, Doru Pop investigates matters of “Romanianess” in their cinematic routines, thus locating their cultural roots and philosophical reach within the continental filmmaking system.

A Bloomsbury review by Alina Haliliuc, Associate Professor, Communication Department, Denison University, USA, states on the book: Doru Pop’s book is subtle, astute, and precise, revealing how the cinematic and the metaphysical rely on the non-cinematic and the post-cinematic and the post-metaphysical to facilitate deep thinking and understanding. Pop offers a generous overview of the main questions and points of debate about how movies facilitate thinking. He not only sharpens the existing theoretical and conceptual toolbox in film studies about the epistemic functions of cinema, but also reveals Romanian New Wave films as inexhausted objects for theorizing and criticism.

Doru Pop is a Professor at the Faculty of Theater and Film, Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj. He owns a MA in Journalism and Communication obtained from Chapel Hill University, North Carolina, in 2002, and a PhD from the Babeș-Bolyai University, based on his specialism on the philosophy of visual culture. He was a Fulbright and Ron Brown scholarship fellow between 1995-1996 and 2000-2002. He has taught a course on Romanian film at Bard College, New York in 2012 and was visiting professor at Columbus State University, Georgia in 2017. At  the Faculty of Theatre and Film, Professor Doru Pop teaches courses on Communication Theory, Visual Culture, Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Mass-media and Mass-media and Politics.