Roman Gutek to Receive the Janovics Jenő Award at Transilvania IFF.25

Polish film distributor, festival founder, producer, and champion of art cinema Roman Gutek will be the first recipient of the Janovics Jenő Award at the Transilvania International Film Festival. His name is attached to the most significant Polish cinematic initiatives of the past three decades. Created in memory of a pioneer of Transylvanian and European cinema, the Janovics Jenő Award recognises an individual who has shaped the film world through vision, a pioneering spirit, and the ability to open new roads in the industry. Gutek is also expected in Cluj-Napoca as a member of the Official Competition jury and will take the stage at the TIFF.25 Closing Gala.

Roman Gutek founded Gutek Film in 1994 and has spent the decades since introducing Polish audiences to the work of filmmakers including Pedro Almodóvar, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch and Lars von Trier, through both distribution and festivals. He launched the Warsaw Film Festival in 1985 and directed it until 1992, before going on to found the Nowe Horyzonty International Film Festival in 2001, which has since grown into Poland’s most important film event. In 2010 he created the American Film Festival in Wrocław, dedicated to independent and auteur American cinema routinely overlooked by mainstream distribution. His most recent project is the Timeless Film Festival in Warsaw, which brings classic films back to contemporary audiences. He also ran Warsaw’s Muranów arthouse cinema, which in 2004 was named Best Cinema in the Europa Cinemas Network.

In recognition of his work promoting French culture and cinema in Poland — including through retrospectives and the French Film Festival — he was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres in 2004. Through Gutek Film, which has distributed hundreds of titles and reached millions of viewers, he has remained committed to bringing diverse, high-quality cinema to Polish audiences despite the persistent pressures of the market.

With its 25th anniversary edition, Transilvania IFF has established the Janovics Jenő Award, named for the man who built what has been called “Transylvania’s Hollywood.” Janovics Jenő (1872–1945) is inseparable from the origins of cinema in Cluj and in this part of Europe. A theatre man and director of the city’s Hungarian Theatre, Janovics grasped earlier than almost anyone that film was not a technical novelty but the defining popular art form of the twentieth century. In the early 1910s, when cinema was still a travelling curiosity, he turned Cluj into a production hub.

His legacy is foundational: he created the first film ecosystem in the region, trained professionals, connected local production to international networks, and demonstrated that cinema could become a genuine cultural industry here — all before the idea of a Romanian film industry had fully taken shape. He put Cluj on the map of European cinema before most European cities were thinking that way.

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The Transilvania International Film Festival is organized by the Romanian Film Promotion Association and the Transilvania Film Festival Association.

Supported by: Ministry of Culture, National Film Centre, Cluj-Napoca City Hall and Local Council, Romanian Cultural Institute, Dacin Sara, UCIN, Department of Inter-Ethnic Relations – DRI, Floreşti Municipality, Creative Europe – MEDIA

Under the auspices of: UNESCO City of Film

Presented by: Banca Transilvania

Sponsors: Mastercard, Vodafone, LIDL Romania, Ursus, Regina Maria, Audi & Autoworld, MOL Romania, Pepsi, DeLonghi, Adrem, Jidvei, Nikon, Alstom, Emerson, McDonald’s, Farmec, Radisson Blu, Iulius Mall, Conceptual Lab by Theo Nissim, Teilor, Linde, CSI, ECCO, Nova Power

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