At a moment when documentary festivals are being pushed to clarify their political stakes, One World Romania, 19th edition, has announced two early focal points. The first centres on Belgian filmmaker and multimedia artist Johan Grimonprez, whose Oscar-nominated Soundtrack to a Coup d’État confirmed him as one of the most formally daring and politically lucid nonfiction voices working today.

Grimonprez’s cinema has long occupied a space where archival montage, essay film, and media critique collide. Shadow World (2016), his excavation of the global arms trade, exposes the military-industrial complex as a system sustained by corruption, corporate profit, and geopolitical manipulation. Soundtrack to a Coup d’État (2024) extends that inquiry through a riveting reconstruction of the forces surrounding the assassination of Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba, tracing how Cold War power, colonial violence, and cultural diplomacy became fatally entangled. Both films will screen at the festival, followed by Q&As with Grimonprez, who will also lead a masterclass on 27 April at Cinema Elvire Popesco.

The festival’s second early focus turns toward the Moldovan film industry, whose recent international visibility has made it one of the most compelling documentary scenes in Eastern Europe. In Focus Moldova, One World Romania will present three films by women directors that differ in form yet share a distinctly Moldovan cultural texture. Raisa Răzmeriță’s Electing Ms Santa, awarded the Special Jury Prize at Tallinn Black Nights, follows a woman whose bid for local office transforms personal liberation into political struggle. Olga Lucovnicova’s Last Letters from My Grandma, presented as a preview screening, returns to family memory against the backdrop of Russia’s war. Marina Sulima’s Consider a Tomato uses the scrapbook diary form to examine food, land, and the myths of techno-agriculture.