TIFF: weekend at Bontida Castle

The 15th edition of Transylvania International Film Festival (TIFF) has started last night with an incredible show made by famed French street art band Transe Express in the presence of over 3,000 people who came to Unirii Square to the grand opening. The band prepared a huge aerial show, which involved crane acrobatics. After it, the world premiere of Nae Caranfil’s latest film, 6.9 on the Richter Scale, starring Teodor Corban, Laurențiu Bănescu, Maria Obretin, and Simona Arsu, was a total success.

The second performance, Tambours en Feu, will take place at the Banffy Castle in Bonţida, during the first evening of Weekend at the Castle, Saturday, May 28, from 8:30 PM. The festive drum parade will end with a show of lights, sound, fire and fireworks, before the screening of the film The Show of Shows.

For those who don’t want to spend their TIFF day inside the cinema, the organizers have prepared outdoor events at Banffy Castle, in Bontida. During daylight, most of the events take into consideration activities for children while at 20.30 starts The Show of Shows, by Benedikt Erlingsson, with an original score by Georg Holm and Orri áll Dýrason of Sigur Rós, in collaboration with Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson and Kjartan Dagur Holm.

The Show of Shows represents a captivating and often disquieting documentary about a century of vaudeville, circus shows, fairs and carnivals. The Show of Shows offers new archive footage with clowns, dancers, daring acrobats, freak shows and cruel scenes of animal and children exploitation in a fascinating portrait of a popular world in the 19th and early 20th centuries, according to „The Guardian”.

The touching score of the film was composed by bass player Georg Holm and drummer Orri Páll Dýrason, both members of the famous Icelandic band Sigur Rós, in collaboration with composer Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson and guitar player Kjartan Dagur Hólm. Sigur Rós will return to Cluj, in July, for a live concert during Electric Castle Festival.