The Arta Banatica Cinematica Association was founded in the spring of 2017 at the initiative of director Sabin Dorohoi, multi-laureate of over 60 awards and nominations at international film festivals. In a short time, the association became the most active visual arts entity in the Banatul Mountains Region.
Our team is deeply attached to the Banat region. At the same time working in the field of film and television, constantly alongside numerous teams of artists and technicians, we felt the need to build a common project, which would unite our goals and speak to the world about the western region of Romania, which we love. We want to show through moving images the stories of those places, people, societal issues and tourist attractions. This is how the Arta Banatica Cinematica Association was born.
In the 6 years of activity, we have carried out multiple cultural projects with non-refundable funding, we have worked with hundreds of technicians and artists, reaching over 11 million beneficiaries and totaling non-refundable funding of over 1,200,000 euros from various national and international public authorities, NGOs and private sponsors from Romania and abroad.
The association's first project financed by sponsorships and development funds from the National Cinematography Center (CNC), was "The birthday boy” (production trailer for the “Emigrants in Europe” project) – a short social film on the topic of Romanian migration. It was one of the projects that are the basis for the construction of our statistical studies on the migration of Romanians and the current "Artist Emigrant" application.
Also in 2017, the making of the adventure documentary "SW!M", about the extraordinary performance of the Romanian Avram Iancu who swam the entire Danube. Funded entirely by private sponsorships, the film was nominated in 2018 at the SEEFest festival in Hollywood and received a non-refundable cultural grant from the National Film Center for international promotion!
And also in 2017, our association started the "Banatul Mountains" project. A series of three documentaries promoting the tourism of the region. "Episode 1 - The Road of the Romans” premiered in 2018, ”Episode 2 – The Way of the Waters” was released in 2019 and “Episode 3 – The Iron Road” in 2020. All three projects had non-refundable funding from the Caraș-Severin County Council and several local private sponsors from Banat.
Like the documentary "SW!M", all three episodes of the "Banat Mountains" series had their official premiere on TVR1, TVR Timișoara and were promoted by the local media from Banat. We are already collaborating with a large part of these partners on the "Artist Emigrant" project.
Although the covid19 pandemic has strongly affected the art industry, our association continued to work intensively in 2020! Immediately after the end of the state of emergency, we started the production of the documentary "City of Fire" and at the end of 2020 Arta Banatica Cinematica took care of the casting campaign with children for the main roles in the feature film "Clara" in which we are partners. It was a new series of media partnerships with some of the partners of the "Artist Emigrant" project. The challenge was to find around 100 children, from which to choose two protagonists. And this during the state of emergency when schools were closed! Through very good coordination with all partners, we even managed to exceed all expectations.
In 2021 we started "Artist Emigrant" and since then we have produced over 10 editions (episodes). The project is based on the same concern for the phenomenon of Romanian migration that can be found in several artistic projects of our association, as is also mentioned in this description. Over time "Artist Emigrant" won successive grants from AFCN, Lugoj City Hall and several private sponsors. Through the involvement and support of initial media partners, "Artist Emigrant" has so far reached over 11 million viewers on TV, Radio and online. It was promoted by strong partners who supported the project at the time of its launch: TVR1, Europa FM, "Salvați Copii" Association, Rotary International, Romanian Business Leaders, etc.
Also in 2021 we completed the project "City of Fire” started in 2020, a historical documentary about the story of Reșița, which premiered on the 250th anniversary of the city. It was implemented in several stages over two years (2020 and 2021), with several lines of non-refundable funding from Caraș-Severin County Council, Reșita City Hall and many local private sponsors.
Our association participated in the production of the most complex project produced up to this point, namely the artistic film „CLARA".