Romania's largest open-air museum experimenting with floating boat cinema

Visitors to the largest open-air museum in Romania, the ASTRA Museum, will have the opportunity for the first time to watch films from boats floating on the lake, Saturday to Monday, as part of the ASTRA Film Festival (AFF), ASTRA Museum Director Ciprian Stefan told AGERPRES on Thursday.

"This way of watching films from a boat is a first for the ASTRA Museum. This initiative of the ASTRA Film department, a unit of the ASTRA National Complex, is a good opportunity to capitalise on the monuments and entire heritage of the Open Air Museum at Dumbrava Sibiului. We will take all the necessary measures so that this approach will be entirely safe," said Stefan.

Filmgoers will have 30 boats at their disposal to watch from. Four spectators can sit in a boat, paying 30 lei in all, according to the ASTRA Museum.

The screen will be located among the windmills in the open-air museum, right next to the lake.

"The idea for the AFF Waves program came about because the doors to the cinema halls were closed (and it was uncertain when they would re-open) and because we wanted to offer the public not only the opportunity to watch movies when 'normal' spaces are unavailable or restricted, but also the chance to take part in an experiment. The AFF Waves spectators will not be given seats, but places in boats and paddle boats, and the space will not be a cinema hall, but a lake in the middle of the most beautiful museum in the open air. The event runs for three days, and spectators will 'embark' for screenings on a huge screen set among the windmills of the ASTRA Museum. Three films will run from 20:00hrs, and before their run spectators will get a surprise: four short films from the 'Nature Is Speaking' campaign by Conservation International, in which nature speaks to us through the voices of famous actors, and the 'Art on the new stage' programme, an Ars Gratia Regalia project," according to the official presentation on the AFF website.

Saturday will be the first evening for floating boat cinema at the ASTRA Museum. Three short films will run: "Mother Nature," "The Ocean," and "Story of Fatat" with reruns on Sundays and Mondays.

AFF kicks off on Friday, at 19:00hrss, EEST, with a gig of the band Subcarpati.