Miscellaneous Corneliu Porumboiu is a special guest at the Visions du Réel film festival

SDA

5.2.2025 - 12:49

Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu has a penchant for the absurd. At the Visions du Réel documentary film festival, he will be showing a retrospective of all his feature films. (archive picture)
Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu has a penchant for the absurd. At the Visions du Réel documentary film festival, he will be showing a retrospective of all his feature films. (archive picture)
Keystone

Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu is coming to the Visions du Réel documentary film festival as a special guest. His work revolves around the absurdities of Romanian society, which has suddenly been catapulted into turbo-capitalism.

Keystone-SDA

Porumboiu will take part in both the master class and the retrospective of all his feature films at the upcoming 56th edition in April, as the organizers announced on Wednesday. In a career spanning almost 20 years, the 50-year-old has made 13 films in various genres, including six short films. He became internationally known with his first feature film "12:08 East of Bucharest" (2006).

"We have long dreamed of being able to welcome this great filmmaker," said Emilie Bujès, artistic director of the festival, in the press release.

Porumboiu's films are characterized by black humour and take a realistic and political approach to depicting Romania's recent social history. The films often mischievously underline the tragicomic dimension of this history.

His latest film, "The Whistlers" (2019), is a critically acclaimed crime thriller that veers into the absurd, which is typical of the filmmaker. Another recurring theme is football, in which Porumboiu is interested. His father was a professional international referee.

Several of Porumboiu's films have been selected at the Berlinale or Locarno. They will now be shown in Nyon, where the Visions du Réel documentary film festival is taking place from April 4 to 13.