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Marian Crișan, who won the Palme d’Or in Cannes for his short film “Megatron” as well as directing Locarno award-winning “Morgen” and HBO series “Silent Valley,” is gearing up to shoot his next project in Romania this August. “Holy Light” is a co-production between Crișan’s Rova Film banner, Moldova’s Alternative Cinema, and Slovakia’s Nukleon Frame and financed through Cnc Romania, Cnc Moldova, and the Slovak Audiovisual Fund.

Speaking with Variety out of his homeground at the Transilvania Film Festival, where he is presenting at the Pitch Stop as the producer for Ilinca Straton and Eugen Dediu’s “At King’s Gate,” Crișan explains how the drama was inspired by the titular Orthodox Holy Fire ceremony. The ritual occurs every year at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on the day before Easter and consists of the lighting of a fire — said to emerge miraculously...

The film set in the 1890s shows that the Russian influence on the region has not changed in the last 130 years. Bulgarian director Svetoslav Ovcharov, who has made a name for himself by directing both period dramas and historical documentaries, as well as by writing recent Bulgarian successes such as Thirst, Sister and Irina, is currently in early post-production with the period drama The Bet. The project is being staged by Bulgaria’s Omega Films, represented by producer Svetla Tsotsorkova, and by Romanian outfit Avva Mmix Studio, represented by Andreea Dumitrescu. The screenplay, written by Ovcharov, is set in Sofia in the 1890s. The story centres on the power struggle between the Bulgarian prime minister (Zachary Baharov) and a major (Assen Blatechki), who conspires with Russian forces against the Pm. The major gets a Romanian woman (Romanian actress Ofelia Popii) involved in this conspiracy, a lady whom both he and.

The film focuses on a man working abroad who has a good reason to return home during the pandemic. Romanian director Ştefan Constantinescu has started shooting his first feature Man and Dog, a drama whose screenplay accommodates topics related to the pandemic. The film is being staged by microFILM, represented by Ada Solomon and Diana Păroiu, with Klas Film, Doppelganger, and Pandora Filmproduktion serving as co-production companies. The screenplay, written by Andrei Epure, Constantinescu and Andersson, centers on Doru (Bogdan Dumitrache), a 42-year-old Romanian who works in Sweden. In the midst of the pandemic and as various countries hurry to close their borders, he returns to his hometown of Constanţa as he suspects his wife Nicoleta (Ofelia Popii) is having an affair. Accompanied by his mother's dog, Doru starts shadowing his wife, trying to uncover the circumstances of...