Auteur films, national premieres, meetings with Romanian and international filmmakers, and special programmes bringing together cinema, history, art and cultural heritage will feature at the 22nd edition of the Bucharest International Film Festival (BIFF), which will take place from September 18 to 27 at the Romanian Peasant Museum Cinema and Apollo111 in Bucharest.

According to a press release sent to AGERPRES by the organisers on Thursday, this year's new addition is Visionnaire - Art & Cinema, a curated programme exploring the intersection of cinema and the visual arts through fiction films and documentaries, discussions with special guests, and events dedicated to cultural heritage and the great figures who have shaped the history of art.

The first projects announced under the Visionnaire - Art & Cinema banner are dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci and Constantin Brancusi, while the full programme and guest list for the section will be announced in the coming weeks.

BIFF 2026 will retain the structure introduced in recent years, featuring the International Competition, dedicated to first and second feature films; Panorama, showcasing some of the most acclaimed recent productions from major international film festivals; Romanian Authors, devoted to Romanian cinema and its filmmakers; the Short Film Competition; and the History & Cinema programme.

In the coming weeks, BIFF will unveil the official selection for the International Competition, the Panorama line-up, special guests, jury members and the full programme for the 2026 edition.

With this new edition, the festival reaffirms its mission to promote auteur cinema, encourage dialogue between culture and society, and offer Romanian audiences memorable encounters with leading filmmakers and some of the most important works of contemporary cinema.

Preparations for this year's edition were marked by a reception hosted at Elisabeta Palace by Prince Radu of Romania, under whose High Patronage the festival is held. In his speech, Prince Radu reflected on the festival's development and the challenges it has overcome over the past 22 editions, describing BIFF as 'a remarkable event, part of our cultural identity.'

The reception also presented the first highlights of the History & Cinema section, a programme launched within BIFF in 2021 and coordinated by producer Dan Draghicescu, who founded the section. Among the first titles announced for this year's edition are 'Aria', dedicated to soprano Maria Cebotari, 'The Wishing Tree', the first humanitarian film made in Romania, and 'Lenin's Pawn', a hybrid documentary directed by Dragos Turea. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Petronius Craiu; EN - writing by: Cristina Zaharia)

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