From 7 to 10 November 2024, under the auspices of the Doxologia Missionary Cultural Centre of the Metropolis of Moldavia and Bukovina, the ‘Quo Vadis’ International Film Festival took place in Iași, the theme of whose first edition was ‘freedom’. I had the joy and honour of organising the festival’s artistic programme. It was a sustained, team effort, carried out with passion and dedication, and the result was equally impressive. By every measure, the festival was a success. Even the sceptics admitted that it had exceeded their expectations.
A festival with a philocalic essence
I had been dreaming of this festival for almost twenty years, ever since I began travelling the length and breadth of Romania—and sometimes beyond—discussing the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and a few other great filmmakers who bear witness to the work of the Unseen One.
My message was clear: ‘The Word of God has not died in contemporary art, even though it has been overrun by sacrileges and weeds, and we, today’s critics and artists, have a duty to rediscover this divine Word and not let it die out!”
The enthusiasm and openness with which I was greeted everywhere showed me just how necessary and spiritually nourishing the dialogue about the sacred in cinema is—that is, about the relationship between man and God, captured in the finest moments of the art of the screen. From that moment on, both I and the film enthusiasts around me realised that this Philokalian discussion centred on film must extend beyond the confines of Christian film culture evenings, to develop into a more enduring and broader form—a platform that would bring together the kind of uplifting film culture we were discovering together. This form is a festival. But not just any festival.
Although there are a few exemplary and long-established Christian film festivals in the Orthodox world (even if you can count them on the fingers of one hand), as well as some tentative initiatives in this direction in countries with a heterodox Christian tradition, in Romania, things have moved rather slowly from an organisational point of view. Our Christian film enthusiasts, excited by what they saw and heard from me, would ask me when we Romanians would organise a festival of this kind ourselves? I admit, the film lovers’ innocent naivety initially annoyed me, but it also made me feel somewhat obliged: I had kindled a desire in them – one that was difficult to fulfil, it is true – and now, when they were asking me to fulfil it, it wouldn’t have been right to back out at the last minute, given that they had placed their trust in me.
The fundamental challenge for such a festival was to bring together a team, united by a shared ethos and a unified vision, backed by a logistical framework capable of supporting such a complex project. For organising a festival involves hard work, good organisation and careful planning, which means: a team, a schedule, a strategy, media and production partners, a legal framework, funding, deadlines, plus inspiration, sustained motivation and tenacity to cope with risks and the unexpected. All these elements—but above all tenacity, team spirit and strategic coordination—are hard to find among us, Romanians, however much theologians may speak of humility, synergy, inner unity, love for one’s neighbour and self-sacrifice, and however much filmmakers may speak of talent, openness to the new, professional rigour and pragmatism. For all these are fundamental qualities for the longevity of a sustainable festival, one that nourishes film lovers spiritually, that withstands the test of time and grows, developing into a forum for cultural and Christian dialogue, edifying not only for the public but also for filmmakers, journalists, theologians and church leaders – in short, for a substantial strand of the Romanian spirit, and not only the Romanian one, which we hope will be reborn. This, in essence, is what the team behind this festival – of which I have had the honour to be a part – aspires to achieve.
Yes, a Christian festival is not merely a forum for cultural exchange and dialogue, but also a platform for spiritual renewal. A Christian, philocalic festival imparts a unique energy, born of the joy of countless encounters, bringing together different yet vibrant cultures, each characterised by an ascent towards God and living under the heavens of the One and Same God.
As a festival of Philokalic essence, ‘Quo Vadis’ has been conceived as a collection of testimonies to humanity, elevated art and pure faith, drawn from different parts of the world but centred on an Orthodox core. This core of recent Christian films—particularly Orthodox ones—comprising both debut works and films of great international success, naturally and generously radiates beyond denominational boundaries, not for the sake of exoticism, nor for the sake of political correctness, but with the aim of fostering interfaith openness—a characteristic of the cosmopolitan world of art and the entertainment industry—whilst remaining firmly Christ-centred and grounded in Orthodox Christian teaching. This openness to dialogue leads to a search, amongst the most highly acclaimed art films on the international stage, for behavioural models specific to evangelical morality—models lost to post-Christian Europe and, to a large extent, to recent Romanian cinema as well— but paradoxically preserved by ancient non-Christian civilisations—including their own cinema—in artistic forms of exceptional authenticity and freshness. This paradox deserves the utmost attention, both from the perspective of the sociology of religions and in terms of strategies for reviving authentically lived Christian morality and understanding the universality of Christianity. ‘Christ lives in the heart of my neighbour, even if they are of a different religion to me!’—this was the revelation offered by the Central Asian films featured in one of the festival’s sections.
A festival as a living organism
The organising team’s sound cultural and theological grounding, coupled with their experience in curating Christian cultural events, ensures that this whole range of complex issues was skilfully managed to create a vibrant, rich and effervescent film festival, much like a living organism. A festival where you can experience life not merely by watching films, but by allowing yourself to be transformed by them; a festival where you can engage constructively with the filmmakers, even when they come from across the seas and countries; a festival where you are enriched not only culturally, but also as a person and, of course, spiritually. A festival that makes you happier, more spiritually elevated and a better person – in other words, one that brings you closer to God. And I believe that, together with the festival’s producer, the enthusiastic Cătălin Jeckel, cultural adviser to the Archdiocese of Iași, and the rest of the organising team, we have achieved this. And the audience, the press and the festival’s guests have amply confirmed this.
The cornerstone of the festival was recent Christian Orthodox films that have enjoyed great international success, as well as the box-office hits of Christian cinema. It turns out that such films have been around for a few years now, and we are delighted that they come from Christian Orthodox cultural circles and embrace the Christian faith. Such film projects emerge from within communities of practising Christians who are film professionals and who manage to secure the resources needed to make a film. For reasons that are largely ideological, but also financial, there are not many such films, but when they do appear, their impact transcends denominational boundaries, winning over a wide variety of audiences.
The core of recent Orthodox Christian films at ‘Quo Vadis’
The ‘Quo Vadis’ festival would not have been complete without films offering historical re-enactments of passages from classical or contemporary hagiography; some of these, already known to Christian film enthusiasts and having garnered attention on the festival circuit, but shown on the big screen in Romania for the first time; these films establish a new genre: that of cinematic hagiography.
Thus, A Cross in the Wilderness. Saint Paraskevi, by the young Serbian director Hadzi-Aleksandar Djurovic, Serbia (2022), follows the spiritual trials endured by the beloved patron saint of Moldova and Romania, on her journey through the Jordanian desert to Constantinople. The film’s director, who was present at the festival, also presented other Christian films of his own: the medium-length films After the Cock’s Crow and the documentary Only Love Can Save Us*.
The docudrama The Life of Saint Joseph the Hesychast, directed by Alexandros Foteinos and Yiannis Traganidas, produced by Vatopedi Monastery (Greece, 2020), brought back to Romania the much-loved American actor who converted to Orthodoxy, Jonathan Jackson, the film’s lead actor. His charismatic presence brought to life some of the festival’s most moving moments.
Also featured in the same programme is the major international hit A Man of God: Saint Nectarios of Aegina (Greece, 2021), a historical reconstruction directed by the Serbian actress and director Yelena Popovic, who is also well known in Romania, with the renowned American actor Mickey Rourke in the cast.
A surprise of the festival was the documentary Holy Alaska (USA, 2021), which proved a huge hit amongst American Orthodox Christians, directed by Simon Scionka, an Orthodox documentary-maker concerned with various issues facing Christianity in the contemporary world. The film, which won an award at the Byzanfest Festival in 2023 (Melbourne, Australia), is a moving account of the Christianisation of Alaska by the first missionaries, highlighting the profound power of social transformation exerted by Christianity.
Also forming part of the festival’s Orthodox Christian core was the ‘Young Hopes of Christian Cinema’ showcase, a section dedicated to emerging talents who have made their mark by exploring Christian themes in cinema. This includes the medium-length thriller Slujba, directed by the Serbian actor and playwright Andrej Šepetkovski, which explores the relationship between political power and the Church in the former Yugoslavia. Also included is the latest film by the young Serbian director Ivan Jović, released in Serbia in September 2024, Lazar’s Path, a satire on bureaucracy set on a Mediterranean island. Also featured in this programme is the short film ‘500’ (2018) by the young Romanian director Bogdan Albu, a drama with a Christian moral, which has enjoyed a successful festival run.
Also part of the festival’s Christian Orthodox core is the section ‘Classics and Emerging Talents of Romanian Christian Cinema’, which highlights Romania’s contribution to the field of Christian cinema. Film-loving audiences had the opportunity to enjoy a ‘Nicolae Mărgineanu Medallion’, a living legend of Romanian cinema, one of the very few Romanian directors who did not compromise their conscience during the totalitarian era and did not renounce the ideals they professed in cinema during the socialist era. A master of historical and biographical film, Nicolae Mărgineanu had already demonstrated the full extent of his talent even before 1989, but he was, of course, only able to make films of Christian testimony after 1990. The film Blessed Be Prison! marked the director’s full-scale engagement with the theme of communist prisons and survival through faith under totalitarian conditions. The film, which enjoyed immense and enduring popular success, inaugurated a series of historical and Christian films of outstanding artistic quality on the theme of the relationship between political power and the Church, from which we had the joy of seeing The Cardinal, False Treaty of the Soul’s Salvation and The White Gate.
The section ‘Classics and Emerging Talents of Romanian Christian Cinema’ also included the ‘Cristina Chirvasie – Young Hope of the Artistic Documentary’ Medallion, featuring seven documentary essays on the themes of freedom and faith, based on interviews with prominent figures in contemporary Romanian society whose lives and work are linked to Romanian Orthodox culture (the painter Silvia Radu, theologian Costion Nicolescu, director Nicolae Mărgineanu, writer Mircea Stanciu, translator and editor Micaela Ghițescu, ethnologist Acad. Sabina Ispas, theologian Dumitru Horia Ionescu, architect Augustin Ioan, iconographer Raluca Prelipceanu, painter Dorel Zaica, sociologist Prof. Ilie Bădescu, and doctor Galina Răduleanu). The young director, screenwriter and documentary film producer Cristina Chirvasie is the creator of a unique project, ‘The Revolution of Models’, under the auspices of which she produced most of the documentaries featured in the series.
Given the festival’s Christian Orthodox focus, the Romanian contribution from the Christian Orthodox media groups Doxologia and Trinitas TV was a key feature, comprising a selection of their best recent documentaries, on themes relating to the history of Christianity and the Romanian Orthodox Church. Trinitas TV presented four documentaries (Jerusalem, Saint Nicholas: The Face of Gentleness, The Martyr of the Union: Saint Alexander, the Martyr-Priest of Bessarabia, and Romanians in the Soviet Gulag), whilst Doxologia screened the documentary A Saint of Words: Metropolitan Dosoftei of Moldova.
In the next issue, we will present the other sections of the festival: ‘Central Asia Medallion’ and ‘The Double Centenary: Tengiz Abuladze (1924–1994) and Sergei Parajanov (1924–1990)’.