Niko Becker, Gopo Film Festival’s Young Hopeful

The revelation of this year's Gopo film festival

Eugen Nasta, 28.09.2024, 14:00

28Actor Niko Becker in 2024 scooped the Gopo Award in the Young Hopefuls category as part of the Gopo Film Festival, for Dumitru, his role in the film To the North, a film directed by Mihai Mincan.
Niko Becker began his career on stage at the German State Theatre in Timisoara. When he was 15 he featured in One Step behind the Seraphim, a production directed by Daniel Sandu.

In 2021, stage director Eugen Jebeleanu had Niko Becker on the cast for Treplev’s role as part Tchekhov’s Seagull, a stage production that would later be included in the I.L. Caragiale Bucharest National Theater’s repertory. Niko Becker also worked with director Carmen Lidia Vidu, in The Frail Feeling of Hope, playing the part of a youngster diagnosed with schizophrenia, equally fighting his mental condition and the social stigma. Since 2023, the young actor has become the youngest member of Bucharest-based Odeon Theater top-flight troupe. Niko was introduced to the public once with the premiere of An Open House, a stage performance directed by Teodora Petre.

Mihai Mincan’s first feature-length film, To the North, is based on a true story. The five-country European co-production tells the story of Joel, a religious Filipino sailor working on a transatlantic ship. Joel discovers Dumitru, a clandestine passenger hidden between the containers. The discovery of Dumitru puts Joel in an extreme situation that forces him to reconsider his bond with friends and faith. In director Mihai Mincan’s own words, ‘To the North is a film about fear, a film about the confidence in the other one, a film about the ability or inability to put your life in the hands of an unknown person, but also about our relationship with God.’

We sat down and spoke with Niko Becker about his passion for acting. We started off from his role in the psychological thriller, To the North, a production that scooped the Critics’ Award as part of the Venice Biennale, Bisato D’Oro, in the Best Film category. To The North is also included in the selection of major international film festivals.

“I perfectly got along with the team and by that I do not mean the actors alone. Since it was my debut in a lead role, I was somehow in a discomfort zone, I had many uncertainties. Concurrently, I set my own standards very high. As for the experience I had in theatre, that was helpful, obviously, yet film and theatre are different arts and things do not overlap perfectly. There is this specific difference, especially in the way it is materialized in the end, since the movie remains on the film. That puts a lot of pressure on you, as an actor, when you think that what you do on the set remains imprinted. And it is a little bit stressful, the fact that the way you act remains, whereas in theatre, even if you may have a bad evening, you have the opportunity to recreate the role. But like I said, there are always risks in theatre because we can have less inspired moments, you know.

I rarely get out satisfied after completing a performance, I always have the feeling that it could have been better, that I could have put up a better performance. And I believe it’s only natural to want each time more because if we want less, we limit ourselves and we can no longer make headway. And, coming back to the movie, if I know that the part I play – after a series of retakes – is being shot, I succeed in using my intuition and the other qualities. It seems to me that under the pressure of the moment, in a film I can achieve more.”

Nico Becker told us how he contoured, with help from director Mihai Mincan, the part of Dumitru, the stowaway on the ship where Joel, the Filipino, works in ‘To the North’.

“When I prepared the part, I focused on the separate elements the character was made of. I thought what it was like to feel all the things Dumitru himself felt, like hunger, cold, being scared by loud noises etc. And I was trying to express all that through my body by means of the techniques employed by actor Michael Chekhov, which were quite helpful. I also worked a lot on the character’s psychological background. Of course, the script helped me a lot as everything starts with the script, you know.

For me, it is essential to better understand the script, what it is all about, the circumstances, situations, the characters’ reasons and the conflict between them and the rest but also the conflict with themselves. I believe that in this way you can better understand the part you have to play, by finding out the conflict in the entire storyline and the sections making it. Having identified that, I complete the character by using my imagination and expertise.”

One of the latest parts played by Nico Becker is that of journalist Krzysztof Zalinski in “Disquiet”, by Ivan Vyrypaev, directed by Bobi Pricop. “Disquiet”, a performance in which Nico Becker has as partner the extraordinary Dorina Lazăr is, first and foremost, “a show about the relationship between art and life, creation and creator, between love, God and everything we are trying to give a sense to (by means of faith, art or love). Just like life itself, the theatre is and causes disquiet; actually, every one of us is a mixture of disquiet, which art in all its forms is trying and maybe even succeeding in unravelling” Bobi Pricop says.