They say never meet your heroes, but you can see for yourself if that's good advice when Belfast Film Festival programmer and Variety and New York Times film critic Jessica Kiang sits down for a chat with multi award-winning Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude, who would be very embarrassed to be described as one of hers.

(Hyper)Active since the early 2000s, Jude made his first big splash on the international festival circuit when his beautifully shot, scabrously funny period satire Aferim! won Best Director at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival, where Jude would go on to take the top prize, the Golden Bear, in 2021 for his zany, uncategorizable political provocation Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (BFF'21).

He was also awarded the top prize at the 2018 Karlovy Vary Fim Festival for the brilliantly angry black comedy I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians, and with Best Director in Locarno in 2023 for another of his wordcount-defying titles Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, which played in BFF'23 and which Jessica Kiang maintains is her favourite — and therefore empirically the best — movie of last year.

Join us for what is sure to be a highly unpredictable and enjoyable conversation with one of world cinema's true mavericks, who we are also honored to have serve on this year's International Competition jury.

For information on the full BFF24 programme visit: www.belfastfilmfestival.org