Conferences

Irina Margareta Nistor will hold a conference entitled "Cinema, the Only Certain Immortality", on Sunday, the 24^th of November, at 11AM, in The Small Hall of the National Theatre of Bucharest. Entry fee: 16 lei

About the Conference

The first great actress who realized that the seventh form of art is the only way through which they can escape the dreadful spectrum of forgetfulness was Sarah Bernhardt: the divine lady took on the assumed risk of ridicule which this fascinating, but yet uncertain, invention faced in the beginning, and agreed to be a staggering, moving shadow in 1900 for Hamlet; to top it off, she was cross-dressing for the part. She shows up on the cinema canvas a few more times until 1923, where she ends her career - and life - as a fortune-teller, a psychic, as her brave decision to star on the big screen has proven.

A few years later, our compatriot, Elvira Popescu - later known as Elvire Popesco - followed in her footsteps with a bright career in theatre, on the greatest scenes in Paris. Born on the 10^th of May, 1894, one year before the Lumière Brothers' great discovery, she was to live for almost a century. Her debut took place in 1912 in The War for Independence,
and she moved on to play in the films of the famous Carmine Gallone, Julien Duvivier, Sacha Guitry, Abel Gance, and René Clement - the latter offering her a part in Purple Noon(1960), where she co-starred with the charming Alain Delon, who would hold eternal gratitude towards her, confessing his utmost respect for the woman who showed him the ropes of theatre. We've recently rediscovered Alain Delon this year in Cannes, and you can see him at the NTB on Sunday, the 24^th of November, in a recently restored copy of a cult classic.

Sir Laurence Olivier himself "takes advantage" of the solution through which he would hold on to his memorable Shakespearian performances, which he also directs, to some extent.

Times change, however, and now famous actors are craving for the thrill of meeting their audience, with its gaze and especially its applause. A notable, melodic and charming example is Woody Allen and his Jazz concerts.

About Irina Margareta Nistor

Born on the 26^th of March 1957 in Bucharest, Irina Margareta Nistor graduated from the French-English section of the University of Bucharest in 1980, with a thesis on Cocteau and Cinematographic Poetry. She started translating for the Romanian Cinema in the same year, while working as an editor for the National Television, where she wrote subtitles for over 500 films. She later on became a host for shows such as Video-Ghid, Serialul Serialelor şi Ecranul, Perpetuum Mobile (For RomSat, where she is a programme director for an American company), Film Puzzle (TVR2) and Lexicon cinematografic, Universul Desenului Animat, De la Benzi Desenate la Fotograme Animate for TVR. She dubbed over 5000 English, French and Italian films between 1958 and 1996 (about which a documentary is currently in the works by a team in London, with a Romanian co-producer: Chuck Norris versus Communism.)

She produced a series of cine-documentaries, Istoria se Repetă, concerning the years 1957, 1958 and 1959, made a portrait of Toma Caragiu and a study film about the impact that the Dallas series had over Romanians. She also attended seminars in Salzburg and participated at 8 editions of the European Forum of Cinema and Television.

In 1993 she produced the program Romanian Cinematography after 1989 for the international channel TV5.

She has interviewed famous figures such as Giuliano Gemma, Bernard Pivot, Alan J. Pakula, Frédéric Mitterrand, Rutger Hauer, Sam Karmann, Park Chan Wook, Anthony Minghella, Yann Tiersen, Jean-Claude Carrière, Julie Délpy, Grace Zabriskie, Pim Van Hoeve, Michael Nyman, Bruce Beresford, Peter Greenaway, Charles Aznavour, Francis Ford Coppola, the Dardenne brothers, Carole Bouquet, Isabelle Huppert, K. Zanussi, Ken Loach, and Istvan Szabo, as well as numerous ambassadors in Bucharest. She does the running commentaries for the César, Oscars, BAFTA, EMMY, and Cannes awards- where she announced Cristian Mungiu's winning the Palme d'Or - as well as for Tribute to the Heroes (a memorial show for the 9/11 victims), live from the studio.

She personally films festivals in Karlovy-Vary, Reims, Stockholm, and Montreux, and does running commentaries from Cannes, Berlin, Namur, Tokyo, San Sebastian, Chișinău, Montreal, London, Rome and Venice for the radio, television and written press.

She was editor-in-chief for the magazines Cinema paradis and Avanpremiera. She collaborated with various newspapers and magazines, such as Evenimentul Zilei, TV Mania, România Literară, Observator Cultural, Cotidianul, Almanahul Caţavencu, Privirea, România Liberă, Gazeta Teatrului, Ciao, and currently with LiterNet, Adevărul.ro, Timpul de la Iași, Ralix, and Pagini Românești, of New Zealand.

She translated over 90 books, including dictionaries, plays and novels. She participated as an expert in communication at the Audio-Visual Translator's Congress, held by UNESCO in Strasbourg, in 1995. She prepared a lexicon of Romanian cinematographers who were born beyond the border, and wrote the introduction for a collection of Romanian film posters, which she then translated into French. She was an HBO adviser and a member of multiple Cinematography National Centre committees.

In 1995 she was a member of the Dakino Festival jury, and in 1996 she served as Artistic Director for the Costineşti Festival. Since 2002 she's been a member of the preliminary jury of the Dakino International Film Festival, and joined the jury for Anonimul in 2007. She co-organises Romanian film festivals in Bordeaux, and, for the past 6 years, in Montreal. She's a member of multiple juries for local and international festivals, where she presents films and holds Q&A sessions.

She was a member of the director committee of the SOROS Foundation in Romania, and is an honorific member of the Vodafone Foundation.

For the past nine years and a half she's been moderating the show Vocea Filmelor, at first on Radio Total and later on Radio Guerilla. She started hosting a cinema blurb on Antena 1 in January 2013, twice a week - on Tuesdays and Thursdays - with Neața cu Răzvan și Dani.

In 2006 she published a book about her mentor, a well-known Romanian cinema critic, called Magistrul - Povestea Bis a Maestrului D. I. Suchianu.

She's been holding a master-class on the history of Romanian cinema, in English, during summer courses organized by ICR in Braşov which are aimed at expats, future diplomats and translators.

She taught English for the Bucharest Conservatory between 1991 and 1996. She's a member of UCIN and chooses which films which are to be projected at Studio Cinema, while also participating annually at the Europe Cinema meetings in Cannes.

She's been a director of the International Psychoanalysis and Film Festival in Bucharest - a replica of the London festival - since 2012.

Translated by Ioana Fotache

MTTLC, The University of Bucharest