These are troubled times. Just a few hundred kilometres from Romania's border, an armed conflict is in full swing. As its escalation and fuelling do nothing but alter the promise of peace in the region, the visual campaign for the 21st Transilvania International Film Festival (17-26 June, Cluj-Napoca) sends an unequivocal message: Make Films, Not War!
Inspired by the classic slogan “Make Love, Not War!” that emerged in the 1960s at the height of the American aggression in Vietnam, TIFF's message is one of creation, not destruction, firmly opposing war and the irresponsible fuelling of the state of conflict - hence the "camera as a weapon" image on the poster of the current edition. In other words, the only "conflict" TIFF encourages is the one on screen, imagined by the screenwriter and translated into film by the director.
The visual graphics of TIFF2022 are signed by Péter Árpád Loránt and Andrei Pastuhov.
The festival's spot revisits the anti-war message from a cinematic perspective, while paying homage to one of the best Romanian films, shown several times at TIFF, most recently in 2020, in a digitally restored 4K version. In one of the opening scenes of Lucian Pintilie's The Oak (Balanța), the heroine played by Maia Morgenstern watches a home movie where, as a child, she rejects the toys offered to her by Santa Claus, grabs the gun out of his hands and playfully pretends to shoot the party guests. Those who have seen the film know that this burlesque simulacrum is premonitory, taking on a tragic dimension in the real massacre scene at the end. For those who haven't seen The Oak, the dark humour and the delirious verve of the scene in this year's TIFF promo video becomes all the more chilling as the reality in the field threatens to mirror the film on screen.