La Metropolitaine (The Metropolitan, 2010, Dan Popa, 24 min, TIFF 2010 entry, Fiction) The Metropolitan is an experimental fiction film that combines architecture, travel and love. The love story takes place in seven underground subway systems around the world. The film is characterized by colors and poetry which depict themes on life in transition. Visually the film consists of a montage of 21000 pictures from several hundred subway stations as we follow the protagonist in his search for true love.

Midi (Noon, 2008, Dan Popa, 6 min, TIFF 2008 entry, Fiction) Today is Koppa's birthday, and he is celebrating it by sitting on his 9th floor balcony and putting the finishing touches on his customized fishing hooks. After dinner, and a brief one-way conversation, Koppa reveals to the audience the nature of his anxiety; he hates his own inability to do anything about his future.

Dan Popa is a Montreal-based filmmaker of Romanian origin who directs and photographs his own work. He studied filmmaking at Concordia University and has worked as a freelancer in both film and design. In 2006, he started NATALI film, his own film production company. His research focuses on the exploration of contradictions, both aesthetically and formally, through new cinematic approaches. He is currently working on a poetic feature film, shot on four continents, about the rise and fall of a republic that never existed.

Nunta lui Oli (Oli's Wedding) (Tudor Cristian Jurgiu, 22 min) Oli's Wedding won the Best Romanian Short Film Award at NexT IFF 2009. Alone in his kitchen in Bucharest, Dorel prepares for what seems to be a party. Actually, it's his son's wedding which takes place in the USA. Dorel is going to watch the wedding through a webcam together with two of his son's friends. On the small display they are going to meet the bride and her father and will witness the ceremony. A bittersweet story about scattered families and lonely parents.

Please join visiting director Dan Popa, American Romanian Festival Executive Director Marian Tanau and Ramona Uritescu-Lombard, an expert in Romanian cinema and lecturer in the German and Comparative Literature departments at UM, for a discussion and Q&A after the screenings.

Part of the Fourth Annual American Romanian Festival, this event is sponsored by Michigan Arts Council and Cultural Affairs, National Endowment for the Arts, University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Center for Russian and East European Studies, and the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance.