Romania’s One World Returns
One World Romania’s 19th edition navigates austerity while sustaining a culture of resistance
At the edge of austerity yet still insistently outward-looking, the 19th edition of One World Romania returns to Bucharest between 24 and 29 April 2026, followed by a month-long online programme accessible across the country. Bringing together over 40 documentary works across multiple venues, the festival continues to position cinema as a site of civic encounter, foregrounding films that engage directly with human rights, political struggle, and social fracture. Since its founding in 2008, One World Romania has evolved into a crucial regional platform where documentary operates as representation and intervention, fostering dialogue, dissent, and collective reflection in a moment when such spaces feel increasingly precarious.
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News
One World Romania 2026 sets early focus on Johan Grimonprez and Moldovan documentary
Films
American Doctor
Director: Poh Si Teng
Following three American physicians in and beyond Gaza, American Doctor confronts genocide, media legibility, and the ever-collapsing distance between war and domestic responsibility.
Last Letters From My Grandma
Director: Olga Lucovnicova
From Moldova to the southern Urals to Spain, Last Letters from My Grandma links family loss to larger political fractures, asking what peace costs and who pays.
Orwell: 2+2=5
Director: Raoul Peck
The rat cage gone from metaphor to reality: Orwell's dsystopia realised and then some.
Something Familiar
Director: Rachel Taparjan
A search for a birth family becomes a nuanced meditation on trauma, shared fates, loss, and self-authorship.
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Director: Johan Grimonprez
How jazz music played a role in political manoeuvres during the Cold War.
Synthetic Sincerity
Director: Marc Issacs
Blending science and cinema, Synthetic Sincerity follows AI researchers and migrants to ask what remains authentic when images and machines blur.
The Thing To Be Done
Director: Srđan Kovačević
A frontline portrait of cross-border exploitation and quiet solidarity.