Between September 5 and 8, Bucharest will host the only international dance film festival in Eastern Europe at the moment: Bucharest International Dance Film Festival (BIDFF). Over the course of four days, in 10 locations, over 30 events will take place through which the Romanian public will (re)discover the dance film.
The festival will bring to the Bucharest public premiere feature and short dance films, VR exhibitions, performances, guided tours and dedicated workshops. The theme of this edition is Mapping Bodies, which starts from a “vital cartography to understand where exactly we are and where we are going. A map of the body. A map of the body”, Carmen Coțofană, the new artistic director of the festival, tells us.
This year is an anniversary for BIDFF and it aims to celebrate the 10 editions through special events, which will take place in multiple locations in Bucharest.
The program is structured in five sections, and the most important of them is BIDFF Films, which includes four premiere feature films, which delve into the sensitivity and complexity of the human experience and which challenge, in one form or another, the norms of society.
Another important component of BIDFF Films is the International Short Film Competition, where the world’s best short films featuring and about dance compete for festival prizes. The organizers mentioned that more than 200 works were entered and that the selection process was difficult, which means that the selection of the winners by the jury will be up to the mark. The screenings will take place at Elvire Popesco Cinema, Grădina cu Filme – Cinema and More, Roaba de Cultură, MASCA Theatre, Apollo 111 and Muzeul țăranului Cinema.
BIDFF VR is a section dedicated to new forms of media that intersect with art and technology. During the four days of the festival, there will be a VR exhibition at @SAC/Malmaison, bringing together works signed by artists present at renowned festivals such as Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival. The exhibition proposes an interactive journey through the various layers of reality, from cosmic or shamanic stories to those inspired by real life.
In BIDFF Expand, choreographer Lucie Eidenbenz presents for the first time in Romania her performance LES VAGUES, inspired by the novel-poem “The Waves” by Virginia Woolf. It will take place at the Bucharest National Dance Center, on the last day of the festival. The public is also invited to the reading performance, which explores the historical, social and cultural roots of gender identity: Cosmic Chronicles: Body and Mythology of Gender created by the artistic team formed by ADAM/ Ada Mușat, Andre Rădulescu, Andrei Dudău, Andy Andreea, Aron Madon, Ioana Chițu, Oana Micu, Paula Dunker, RAJ. Also at CNDB, the dancer and choreographer Andreea Nova will coordinate a special event, in partnership with the CNDB archive, dedicated to the personality and activity of Adina Cezar also includes workshops dedicated to those in the field of dance/cinematography such as a video-dance laboratory, supported by the French director and choreographer Fu LE; a dance workshop led by Lucie Eidenbenz and a VR production masterclass coordinated by the artists Ioana Mischie and Marius Hodea.
“Dance, cinema, intersections, juxtapositions”
BIDFF Exchange stands for “Dance, Cinema, Intersections, Juxtapositions”, a forum where Samuel Retortillo (ES), Lucia Carolina De Rienzo (IT), Sarah Moller (DE), will discuss the current state of dance film in Europe. Jessie Keenan (NI), moderated by Simona Deaconescu (RO). The event will take place at Modul Cărturești and is supported by ICR Madrid, ICR Rome, the Italian Institute in Bucharest, ICR Berlin, ICR London.
The last section, but not the last, is the BIDFF Community. On the 5th and 6th of September, two guided tours open to the general public are organized, coordinated by the dancer and choreographer, Andreea Novac. Together with the participants, they will let themselves be carried along in the footsteps of choreographer Adina Cezar, through the places in Bucharest that marked her choreographic course. There will also be some closed circuit events. Both the VR works in the exhibition and a selection of dance films specially curated under the title “Dance on Film for the Fourth Age” will be shown to the residents of the “Amalia and Chief Rabbi Dr. Moses Rosen” Residential Center for the Elderly. The children under the care of the Ferentari Association will participate in a dance workshop led by choreographer Catrinel Catană at Good Mood Dance Studio and will take a tour of the VR exhibition at SAC/Malmaison.
All the details and the complete program of the festival will be communicated soon on bidff.ro, as well as on the Facebook and Instagram pages of the event.
BIDFF – 10 years of existence and a new beginning
This year, BIDFF celebrates 10 years since it was founded by choreographer Simona Deaconescu and film producer Anamaria Antoci. At the same time, a change is taking place that will bring another dynamic and other necessary dimensions to the festival:
“BIDFF was born from a friendship, but also from the desire to bring to Romania films with a strong discourse about the contemporary body. BIDFF evolved naturally from a few screenings of short dance films to an interdisciplinary festival with 5 sections and over 25 events, promoting “borderline” artists, difficult to fit into traditional formats. In recent years, we have focused on initiatives that bring art into the community, with the people, where we believe it should be. Neither Anamaria nor I would have liked this festival to remain a personal project, dependent on our efforts. A cultural event is relevant when it develops beyond the wishes of the founders, becoming a phenomenon anchored in the community it serves. In culture, management change is healthy and necessary, so we decided to make it happen at BIDFF with the anniversary edition. Carmen Coțofană, choreographer and coordinator of cultural projects, is the ideal choice. Carmen has extensive international experience and a good understanding of the dynamics of the creative industry. With a special vision, it places BIDFF in a regional European context, where its uniqueness in the Balkan area gives it greater importance and makes us responsibleSimona Deaconescu tells us.
The new artistic director, choreographer and dancer Carmen Coțofană adds: “Simona Deaconescu’s proposal to take over the artistic direction of the BIDFF festival came at a time when I felt it was the most coherent answer to the inevitable questions that come with the transition from 44 to 45 seasons in probably the warmest of cousins Questions that I could reduce to one, the hardest of all, namely: >. The answer came, perhaps, as a natural continuation of my career as project coordinator related to contemporary dance production within the Bucharest National Dance Center. But I think it was more than that. Dance film has always been a fascination of mine – the little material circulating on VHS tapes from my college days opened up a dialogue I’ve never been able to finish: What exactly is dance film? Video? Video art? Cinema? Choreographic composition or cinematography? Body-image or body-image? What are the rules, where do we put it? On which shelf? How do we look at it? Maybe we don’t have to put it anywhere. Maybe it’s exactly where it needs to be. At the intersection of 44 and 45. Skin, flesh, muscle, vertebrae, posture, dioptres, breath, profile – a map of the ever-changing body, a dotted tracing of differences, of the new configuration superimposed on the old one we believed eternally stable, immutable. A new death and a new beginning in perhaps the hottest of summers, on the border between two worlds, yesterday and today, a retracing of the edges of the body, a vital mapping to understand where exactly we are and where we are going . A map of the body. A map of the body. Mapping bodies.“
