The quality of the films in competition in TIFF24, the Transilvania International Film Festival in Cuj-Napoca, was outstanding and impressed the ecumenical jury. The festival focusses on debuts of filmmakers or second films, the preselection committee did well in their final choice. With one cinema where the twelve films competing were being screened, the conditions were all the same: screen and audio, with comfortable chairs. The selection of films in competition fitted very well in the theme chosen for TIFF24: does the future look bright? Does it look right?
The four ecumenical jury members were unanimous in their choice for the awarded film ‘Peacock’ by Bernhard Wenger. The film reflects the kind of everyday life we can feel trapped in, while offering a way out of pretence and self-centeredness. It is a witty, clever, and well-acted film, rich in layers, that invites us to rediscover our true selves and embraces truth over falsehood, ultimately offering hope.
‘Rains over Babel’ by Gala del Sol received a recommendation of the jury. Her film is bold, based on a courageous idea, radiating with remarkable creativity. It calls us to turn toward our neighbour with the same boundless love with which God embraces all of humanity.
Peacock: The Price of Being Perfect for Everyone[1]
Matthias is the perfect man for any occasion. He can blend effortlessly into any context, adapting to every situation with charm and success — a talent that lies at the core of his brilliant career. He works for an agency that ‘rents out people’ to fit a wide range of social scenarios. Matthias can be a charismatic partner at a gala dinner, the model son of a successful businessman — showcasing his father’s generosity and goodwill — or even a thoughtful confidant ready to help others sort through their problems.
But such professional flexibility comes with a price: how do you stay true to yourself when your job is to become anyone, and to meet everyone’s expectations, in any setting?
German director Bernhard Wenger’s feature debut explores this theme with a minimalist touch — favoring static shots, subtle storytelling, and a healthy dose of dry humor. It gently tackles a deeply relevant issue: today, a person’s worth often seems to depend entirely on others’ approval, measured in likes and reactions on social media.
Our motivations are no longer driven by the true desires of the heart — that core of identity and source of real spiritual consolation — but by external expectations and projections. When we fail to cultivate a solid inner life, we end up living like mannequins, constantly swayed by the opinions and situations around us. Emotional fragility, insecurity, and a sense of emptiness are always lurking.
From a spiritual perspective, one of the film's gems is its powerful final scene, which is beautifully crafted and rich in symbolic meaning. For the viewer with a theological lens, it evokes a baptismal moment — a kind of purification, and the beginning of a new path away from the gaze of others.
Rains Over Babel: A Fever Dream of Life, Death, and Drag[2]
From the very first moments, viewers of Rains Over Babel know they’re in for something truly unique. A wild journey. A queer, enchanted drama bursting with creativity and narrative power. An eccentric path that astonishes, disturbs, seduces, and shakes the audience.
At the heart of it all is Babel, a psychedelic nightclub where the entire story revolves around La Flaca, a captivating young woman who embodies Death itself. She holds the fate of all the characters in her hands: Dante, who needs more time to settle unfinished business before his contract with La Flaca expires; Monet, who hopes to come back to life before his body decomposes; Timbí and Uma, who fight to save their beloved family members.
Running parallel to their stories is that of Jacob, the son of a pastor, who faces a profound inner struggle as he prepares for his first drag performance at Babel.
A pulsing work of art, Rains Over Babel – the debut feature by young Colombian director Gala del Sol – tackles the great themes of human experience with originality: death, suffering, parenthood, love, and the desire for acceptance. Between the lines of this vibrant, surprising puzzle, we glimpse a universal call to tolerance and radical love.
In the end, this film might best be described as a mad and magnetic invitation to compassion beyond all judgment — perhaps the very heart of any art worthy of the name.
Impressions of the ecumenical jury
Piero Loredan (SIGNIS, Italy) regretted that he did not have enough time to also watch films in other selections. And he would like to recommend to not schedule films in competition after 10.30 in the evening: ‘A pity that I could not give the proper attention after that hour.’ Loredan values the encounter with people from different cultures, backgrounds and traditions. ‘After such experiences, one leaves enriched, with a broader perspective than upon arrival. Furthermore, these moments of encounter help to sharpen our gaze so we can grasp something of the profound truth that every person is a sacred story.’
Personally Nicolae Cara (INTERFILM, Romania) was very touched by the film ‘To a land unknown’, directed by Mahdi Fleifel (UK). ‘I am glad this film got the award of the main festival jury. The film shows how the pressure of being a refugee with an uncertain future can bring people to become hard and inhuman. It also showed the covered emotions of the two main characters Chatila and Reda.’ The two Palestinian cousins find themselves in Athens, living on the street and in a house with other refugees. They try to collect money to be able to follow their dream: setting up a small restaurant in Germany. Therefore, they need, falsified, passports. When Reda, who is on and of a drug-addiction, spends the money on heroin, his cousin Chatila comes up with a dangerous plan of human smuggling. Cara: ‘
Anca Berlogea-Boariu (SIGNIS, Romania): ‘TIFF is really the place to be to discover new voices in the world cinema that finally make the future look bright, beyond any fears and wounds we all suffer,’ Berlogea notes that besides the films awarded by this Jury, some other were also challenging the norms of society and the way an excluded member of a family could find a way back or not. ‘We could think of ‘Three days with fish’, by Peter Hoogendoorn, exploring a broken father-son relationship, during the three days yearly visit of the father in the Netherlands; ‘Weeping walk’, a Belgian production by Dimitri Verhulst, looking with unexpected humour to three days walk of a family behind the hearse of a mother, and ‘Acts of Love’, by Jeppe Rønde, delving into a New Age community in Denmark and the deeply wounded relationship between a brother and a sister.’
The latter film kept Praxedis Bouwman (INTERFILM, Netherlands) thinking. It is a narrative of how traumatised people can form new intimate and friendly relationships. The story line through the film is the very close and intimate, but traumatised, relationship between a brother and a sister, both having grown up in a dysfunctional family. ‘Jeppe Rønde, who created this film based on his own experiences and shame, tells the story of one of those still existing taboos in a way that the viewer never feels like a voyeur.’ The spiritual leader of the community who is also a psychologist, uses ‘family constellations’ as a methodology to give people insights and eventually healing. The camerawork is very subtle, in such a way that the characters and the processes touch.
The ecumenical jury can’t be happier that ‘Sorda-Deaf’, a Spanish drama directed by Eva Libertad, featuring the story of a deaf woman and her abled man awaiting the birth of their child, has won the audience award at TIFF for the third time, after previously having conquered the audience in Berlin and Malaga. The way the director delves into the fears of a deaf woman to have a hearing child, how this reality can almost break the love of an inter-abled couple, is profoundly moving and transcends the borders of the deaf community and makes us all look, hear, and feel differently.
Eucharist Celebration
The ecumenical jury spent a lot of time together, shared thoughts about films, yet also about their respective professional and personal lives. The exchange with the two-headed Signis-jury for Romanian short films was vivid, as it was with Adriana Racasan (Romanian filmmaker and staff of TIFF24). The connection between all came wonderfully together in a meaningful eucharist celebration on the morning of the final meeting of the ecumenical jury. Florin Silaghi and Piero Loredan lead the celebration in the Jesuit chapel at the community in Cluj: ‘Sharing spiritual time together enhances the significance of the experience, and when, as in our case, it is lived just before the final deliberation, I believe it can greatly contribute to unity of heart.’
Human wholeness
For the Ecumenical Jury it has been a real challenge to select the winner, having to choose from so many well directed movies, exploring themes of identity, inclusion, and love, looking for the values that makes us human, whole and build a family and a community. The Ecumenical Jury looked for those films that challenged the most the way we function as society and as a community, where one can’t really define who he really is. The make-believe instead of truthfulness, the acceptance by societies’ norms instead of human wholeness, were themes tackled by several directors, and were important for the Ecumenical Jury members.
TIFF, in the eyes of the ecumenical jury, is really the place to be to discover new voices in the world cinema that finally make the future look bright, beyond any fears and wounds we all suffer.