Better films for the current edition of the „Chronograph” Festival

Those 27 movies selected for the V edition of the Documentary Festival „Chronograph” are superior, from the quality point of view, to those of the last edition, the chairman of the festival’s pre-selection jury, Mihai Poiata, announced about this on Monday, 29 May. According to him, of those 100 movies participating in the pre-selection, there were many worthy films, but they were declined because of the lack of time. Although, he admits that the jury made certain concessions for local films from Moldova, as well as for those from Romania. „If we were to keep the same exigency as for some unaccepted films to the festival, we would have been left without Moldovan and Romanian productions at the current edition,” Poiata mentioned. „Moldova finds itself in an endless transition period and businessmen did not get used to invest in cinema either”, Poiata highlighted. In this context, he also mentioned „the state is still doubting – to invest annually more or less than 1 million lei in cinematography”. According to him, the budget of 1,45 million lei, allocated by the state to produce movies at the state’s order, is sufficient only for 2 short documentaries. Poiata also underlined that „what at the start seemed an ambition of several inexperienced youngsters (OWH TV Studio), to organize an international movie festival, became a cultural element without which we cannot imagine Chisinau”. The cinematographer Sergiu Prodan is the chairman of this year’s festival jury, in which personalities of the field from Romania, Belarus, France and Georgia are included. At the opening of the festival, on Tuesday, May 30, the documentary „Connecting with Moldova” will be presented, made along two years in Moldova by the Swedish director Kurt Skoog. The movies will be presented at the Cinematographers’ Union, on 31 May - 3 June, at 11.00- 19.00. The Festival’s grand prix and trophy will be provided by OWH TV Studio, award for imagine – de TV5 Monde, award for direction – Cinematographers’ Union, public’s consideration award – Medicine Center of Civil Aviation, jury’s special award - organization „Save the Children”. At the same time, this year, it will be provided exclusively the debut award. The 5-th edition of the Festival „Chronograph” proposes over 15 hours of documentaries, exploring latest topics of the whole world, and the works of the directors in those three local sections: video spot, advertisement spot and broadcasts of local TV stations. The festival will be closed on 3 June with the Awarding Ceremony, where the awards and trophies of the festival will be awarded.