What the hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?

THU, SEPT 5 / 18:30 / CINÉMA ELVIRE POPESCO

In June 1970, hot off their spectacular Grammy win for Album of the Year (besting The Beatles’ “Abbey Road”), Blood, Sweat & Tears becomes the first American rock band to perform behind the Iron Curtain, doing concerts in Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland on a tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department.

Like much of the youth in America, band members have been outspoken and critical of the Nixon administration and the Vietnam War. The Iron Curtain Tour seems to be a curious decision by the band, which was at the very height of their popularity. Upon their return, the band becomes a victim of the significant societal upheaval and culture wars in a polarized America, divided as much then as it is now.

Body Odyssey

FRI, SEPT 6 / 20:30 / CINÉMA ELVIRE POPESCO

Mona is a senior bodybuilder who is training for a world championship, her existence is a spasmodic quest for perfection and beauty. Her life is steadily followed by her coach who monitors her single daily actions like a demiurge: her sleep, her nutrition, her training sessions, her doping dosage, her psychology and even her sexual life. This routine gets interrupted when a young guy appears: a single brief sexual encounter over-balances her discipline and her will. Her body will start evolving into a separate entity, with a different personality.

This Is Ballroom

FRI, SEPT 6 / 21:00 / GRĂDINA CU FILME — CINEMA & MORE
SUN, SEPT 8 / 21:00 / CINÉMA ELVIRE POPESCO

Conceived in New York during the 1960s, when two Black queens left the white-dominated pageant contests behind to create their own scene, ballroom culture has long been a space of freedom, expression and transgression. Some 50 years on, the ballroom scene in Brazil is thriving, with houses across the country teaching the art of shade.

Directed by queer Brazilian artists Juru and Vitã, This Is Ballroom stages a real-life ball in a warehouse in the city. Riotously soundtracked, the film only pauses for breath to illuminate the lives of its trans-led cast; away from the dancefloor, these interviews reveal simmering racial and gender tensions. Capturing the spirit of a new, emerging generation, This Is Ballroom celebrates this world as a bounteous and transformative space for queer people of colour.

MEMORIES OF A BURNING BODY

SAT, SEPT 7 / 20:30 / CINÉMA ELVIRE POPESCO

Raised in a repressive era where sexuality was taboo, Ana, Patricia, and Mayela found their understanding of womanhood based on unspoken rules and implicit impositions. Now, their fearless voices incarnate in a single 65-year-old woman, who revisits a kaleidoscopic life of intertwined memories, secrets, and hidden desires.

Memories of a Burning Body was awarded the Panorama Audience Award for the best feature film at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival.

Land of the Unmarked — INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION I

THU, SEPT 5 / 21:00 / CINÉMA ELVIRE POPESCO • FRI, SEPT 6 / 18:00 / PEASANT MUSEUM CINEMA • SAT, SEPT 7 / 21:00 / AMFITEATRU TEATRUL MASCA

The first competition maps human sensory reactions in a volatile world navigating between past and present. From speculative encounters between historical figures, the physicality of fear, the pendulum between forces of nature, imagination and empathy, to the dynamics of a young couple at dawn, the Land of the Unmarked program explores the shifting connections between the imaginary and the real, between nature, people and history. 

Line-up: Angular Phoenix, Somber Tides, Blue Funk, Dragon Hunt, Morning Interlude, In Our Hands, and Lucid Dreaming.

Land of Fluid Outlines — INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION II

THU, SEPT 5 / 21:00 / AMFITEATRU TEATRUL MASCA • FRI, SEPT 6 / 18:30 / CINÉMA ELVIRE POPESCO • SUN, SEPT 8 / 16:00 / PEASANT MUSEUM CINEMA

Land of Fluid Outlines is a collection of nine intimate stories about the fragile and powerful connections between the body, identity, and the environment. These short films challenge social norms through a series of simple gestures, body language and atmospheres. Lua searches the streets of a hostile city for a bird named Memory, while a young woman confronts her inner demons. In another corner of the world, a love story is documented in an intimate slideshow, while Noora finds freedom and expression through dance, either on the ground or in the water. The body becomes a medium of free self-expression, through which it confronts personal, social, and temporal challenges.

Line-up: A Bird Called Memory, Carmen, Forward Back, Slow Dance (Zoomed In): Basic Moves 1, Listen, Noora, Shame, You Can’t Get What You Want but You Can Get Me, and As the Call, So the Echo.

Land of Living Frames — INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION III

THU, SEPT 5 / 18:00 / PEASANT MUSEUM CINEMA • FRI, SEPT 6 / 21:00 / AMFITEATRU TEATRUL MASCA • SAT, SEPT 7 / 18:30 / CINÉMA ELVIRE POPESCO

The third competition captures in a cinematic frame the stories of eight characters embarking on introspective journeys. Land of Living Frames reflects the contrast between disconnection and connection to one’s own body, loved ones, the passage of time and the surrounding. While a filmmaker returns home to film her parents, a 90-year-old woman’s memories dance in the smoke of her kitchen. An alien arrives in New York trying to fit in, while a former Romanian ballet rock star faces the dilemma of generating his own portrait. The program outlines a realm of contrasts, of dissonance between expectations and reality, between connection and acceptance.

Line-up: The Butterfly, Nine Easy Dances, Loop Me In, The Crown Shyness, 96 Samosas, Fig Island, and On the Impossibility of a Homage.

Land of Flickering Bodies — INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION IV

THU, SEPT 5 / 21:00 / APOLLO 111 • SAT, SEPT 7 / 21:00 / GRĂDINA CU FILME – CINEMA & MORE

Land of Flickering Bodies travels through textures and bodyscapes with humor, sarcasm, courage, and sensitivity. Blending animated universes with distorted corporeal realities, the latest competition program reveals the human experience through a variety of lenses. A vibrant series of stories that brings to the foreground themes of self-discovery and adaptation in an unstable everyday life.

Line-up: Always Show Courage When Burning to whe Ground, Sprout, original skin, Second Hand, Immortals, Merman, Hieroglyph Woman, Seize, 27, FR:AGILITY, and ZaiDance.

Best of BIDFF — Screening of the Best Film winners from previous editions

FRI, SEPT 6 / 21:00 / ROABA DE CULTURĂ • SUN, SEPT 8 / 18:30 / CINÉMA ELVIRE POPESCO

During the tenth anniversary edition of BIDFF, we invite you to a special screening of the 11 short films awarded with the Best Film Award in the previous editions of the festival, in the park, at Roaba de Cultură, or in the movie theatre, at Elvire Popesco, where many of them actually met for the first time with the Bucharest audience. A selection of films worth reliving.

Line-up: Su Misura, Womens’ Christmas Night, The Line, Night Dancing, Danse, Poussin, Otherland, Navigation, Belia, Isn’t It a Beautiful World, Warsha, and Urban Genesis.

WHY this Now? + STRANGE AGE — OFF-COMPETITION SHORT FILMS

SAT, SEPT 7 / 20:00 / PEASANT MUSEUM CINEMA

Two of the artists invited this year at BIDFF #10, choreographer, performer and dancer Lucie Eidenbenz and director and choreographer Fu Le, put the present under the spotlight in their latest short films. While the playful and at times eccentric quadriptych Why this Now? Fire, Water, Earth, Air questions our fragmented relationship with the contemporary world and the lack of harmony, the documentary Strange Age is a window into today’s youth, going behind the scenes of Dominique Bagouet’s Jours étranges performance to capture the creative process of the thirteen young dancers of the COLINE collective.

BIDFF #10 Awards Ceremony

SUN, SEPT 8 / 21:00 / GRĂDINA CU FILME — CINEMA & MORE

At the end of the four days of festival, BIDFF invites you to one last event during its tenth edition — the BIDFF #10 Awards Ceremony, a special screening of the winning short films in the International Competition. The event will be presented by the festival's artistic director Carmen Coțofană and BIDFF co-founder Simona Deaconescu, and will feature as special guests the members of this year's jury, formed of dance artists Lucia Carolina de Rienzo (IT), Iztok Kovač (SL) and Fu Le (FR). Audiences will thus have the opportunity to (re)watch some of the best film productions presented in the festival, under the starry sky, at Grădina cu Filme — Cinema & More.

BIDFF VR '24

SEPT 5 — 8 / /SAC @ MALMAISON

BIDFF VR ’24 MAPPING BODIES sees the human body in different social-political contexts, testing the spatial and temporal limits of newly mapped worlds and thus presenting new perspectives on the contemporary, with its emotions, concerns and subjects of reflection.

In the triptych of virtual worlds presented by BIDFF, you get to travel to the other side of the world, to the misty mountains of Oaxaca, to meet the spirits that return full of riches to the world of the living, back in time, during the Holocaust, where musical instruments tell healing stories, and into outer space, to a peaceful exoplanet on the brink of conflict. By choosing to look at the bodies from these three multi-award-winning VR experiences, you will discover a much-needed beacon of hope in an interconnected world increasingly dominated by uncertainty and contradictions, where each choice incites an unexpected web of possibilities.

REACTING CONSCIOUSLY — Screendance Lab with Fu Le

SEPT 5, 6 / 11:00 — 16:00 / THE NATIONAL CENTER OF DANCE BUCHAREST

For the tenth anniversary edition of BIDFF, Fu Le, choreographer, film director and artistic director of the dance company Tetrapode from France is coming to Bucharest to coordinate a two-day screendance lab at the National Center of Dance. The workshop is dedicated to dancers, performers, choreographers, theatre and film directors, as well as cinematographers and visual artists who want to explore dance film. Students from dance, theatre, film and visual arts academies are encouraged to participate. Participants will explore different ways of manipulating objects and relating to the surrounding environment from the perspective of play partners.

Cosmic Chronicles: Body and the Mythology of Gender — Reading Performance

FRI, SEPT 6 / 18:00 / THE NATIONAL CENTER OF DANCE BUCHAREST STUDIO

Cosmic Chronicles: Body and the Mythology of Gender is a choreographic interdisciplinary research, production and education project exploring the historical, social and cultural roots of gender identity. The project aims to use documentation and archiving to explore the historical, social and cultural roots that have helped shape our gender identity. As part of the reading we will present the script of the performance, which in its final form will be a journey through important moments in the history and diversity of gender and will rewrite new mythologies for non-conforming bodies.

Gestures, artistic sidelinings and emotional resonances: Adina Cezar and the Contemp Company — Interactive installation

FRI, SEPT 6 / 19:30 / THE NATIONAL CENTER OF DANCE BUCHAREST

The BIDFF #10 events dedicated to the work of choreographer Adina Cezar do not aim to be a chronological or exhaustive approach to her artistic career. Rather, they selectively highlight a series of initiatives, frameworks, contexts that Adina Cezar initiated, was part of or developed, thus contributing to the construction of choreographic culture in Romania.

The events comprise three guided tours and an installation with which the public can interact and marks, through its content, the choreographer’s artistic effervescence, her perseverance to create and dance, her generosity in building spaces for artistic development, thus contextualizing moments from the history of Romanian contemporary dance.

BODY STATES, RESONANCE, PRESENCE — Dance workshop with Lucie Eidenbenz

SAT, SEPT 7 / 10:00 / THE NATIONAL CENTER OF DANCE BUCHAREST

We will explore different approaches to body states, what kind of presence they produce, and how it can trigger movement. Which physicality, musicality, texture or form occurs when I get in touch with certain emotions, sounds, or perhaps even words? How do I stay in contact with the constant flow of sensations in my body while letting it manifest itself through movement? We will play with tonalities, rhythms, dissociations, tension, momentum, through a series of practices and exercises that I developed for the creation of my dance solo Les Vagues (The Waves).

Les Vagues — Choreographic piece inspired by Virginia Woolf’s novel-poem The Waves

SUN, SEPT 8 / 19:30 / THE NATIONAL CENTER OF DANCE BUCHAREST

Les vagues is a choreographic, sound and visual solo. Les vagues is a trialogue between a dancer, a sound designer and a visual art collective. Les vagues is a poetic, multi-sensory experience. The project began with a decisive encounter between Lucie Eidenbenz with Virginia Woolf's novel-poem The Waves.

From this reading and the inspiration it gave rise to the idea to work in detail on the states of the body to give shape to a choreography, in connection with sound creation and interactive video. The piece features these three mediums that respond to and interact with each other.

Echoes of Reality: an introduction to 360-VR Filmmaking — Masterclass Marius Hodea

SUN, SEPT 8 / 12:00 / /SAC @ MALMAISON

Dive into the world of 360° VR filmmaking with this masterclass, designed for both beginners and those looking to elevate their skills in creating immersive virtual reality content. This course blends technical expertise with creative artistry, offering a thorough introduction to the essentials of VR filmmaking.

Throughout the masterclass, participants will gain an understanding of VR technology, including the latest hardware, cameras, headsets, and must-have software tools. We’ll demystify key VR concepts like "HMD," "FOV," and "haptics," and show you how to craft experiences that truly immerse your audience.

In addition, we’ll tackle common challenges—such as motion sickness, hardware constraints, and accessibility—and equip you with practical solutions to overcome these hurdles. By the end of this masterclass, you’ll have a better understanding of 360° VR filmmaking to bring your own immersive projects to life.

Immersive Legacy: How Can We Archive Human Essence in Virtual Worlds? — Masterclass Ioana Mischie

SUN, SEPT 8 / 14:00 / /SAC @ MALMAISON

How to archive human essence in virtual worlds? How may we perceive constructively the tectonic shifts proposed by new technologies? How to foster forms of collective consciousness? How to differentiate between trends and legacy? During the masterclass we will explore international case studies of immersive stories collected from multiple continents of exploratory practices, groundbreaking initiatives in New Media storytelling and a quick insight into Human Violins, the only Romanian VR installation selected in Cannes Immersive 2024.

Dance, cinema, intersections, juxtapositions — A forum on the current state of dance film in Europe

SAT, SEPT 7 / 15:00 / MODUL CĂRTUREȘTI

On the tenth anniversary of BIDFF, Simona Deaconescu, choreographer, director and co-founder of the festival, invites artists and the public to a forum on the current state and future of dance film in Europe. Together with five directors of dance film festivals from Spain, Iceland, Italy, Germany, Northern Ireland and Iceland, they will discuss local cultural influences on dance film, the coexistence of tradition and innovation in this interdisciplinary genre, and the impact of new technologies on creation and distribution.

We Were a Wild Bunch: Adina Cezar and the Contemp Company — Guided Tour with Andreea Novac

THU, SEPT 5 / 16:00 & 18:00 • FRI, SEPT 7 / 14:00 / MEETING POINT: ROMANIAN NATIONAL OPERA

The three guided tours from BIDFF #10 connect participants with the spaces in Bucharest where choreographer Adina Cezar trained, danced and created, on a route that starts at the Bucharest National Opera House and ends at the National Theatre Bucharest, placing them on a broader map of the artistic initiatives, attitudes and approaches that have contributed to the development of the Romanian choreographic area.

“We were a wild group” is an excerpt from a broader response by choreographer Adina Cezar to a question about the artistic rationale and the cultural context in which the Contemp Group emerged. Starting from this very statement, the guided tours coagulate temporalities and events and frame them within a broader construction of Romanian dance, to which Adina Cezar made a relevant contribution.

DANCE ON FILM FOR THE FOURTH AGE — SHORT FILMS SCREENINGS and VR FOR THE ELDERLY

SEPT 5, 6 / 11:00 / THE RESIDENTIAL CENTER AMALIA AND CHIEF RABBI DR. MOSES ROSEN

The Age4 Community Art Centre (2009-present) is a socio-artistic project created within the Moses Rosen Residential Centre for the Elderly. Following the experience of working together for 18 months, the residents of the home together with a team of artists and performers launched, on May 30, 2011, the "Age4 Community Art Centre". Together they created several dance and community theatre performances, based on the personal stories of the home residents, while advocating against ageism.

The Age4 Community Arts Centre is a space dedicated to promoting community art with institutionalised people through socio-performative practices.

What Moves Me? – (CINE)DANCE WORKSHOP WITH Catrinel Catană

SAT, SEPT 7 / 11:00 / GOOD MOOD DANCE STUDIO

What I propose in this movement workshop is an encounter with one's own body, with a conscious and intelligent body, with a body that is given the freedom to look, to listen, to (re)discover and to feel; we start in this corporal-creative approach from orientation through space with exercises of coordination, posture, release of muscular tension and clarity of movements, to given themes of improvisation. The body in movement is a source of inspiration, it is emotion, it is a composition in itself, it is a story.

Cinéma Elvire Popesco

DACIA BLVD. 77

Masca Theatre

Uverturii blvd. 14

Roaba de cultură

Aviatorilor Blvd. 106

Apollo 111

Ion Brezoianu St. 23-25