No Rest for the Old Lady – a new film by Andrei Gruzsniczki

An overview of Andrei Gruzsniczki's fourth feature

Corina Sabău, 01.08.2021, 14:00

No Rest for the Old Lady is Andrei
Gruzsniczki’s fourth feature, which has been presented in the official
selection of the International Film Festival in Moscow. The event has reached its
43rd edition, and took place over April 22-29. Andrei Gruzsniczki’s
film was screened outside in the main competition, in the Third Age program.
The story of the film takes place in a village in Oltenia, southern Romania,
focusing on the life-long friendship of Emil and Titi. The two protagonists
reflect two types of knowledge: positive, analytical knowledge, and intuitive, mystery-wrapped
knowledge. I wanted to create a new type of cinema that observes and records
facts, actions, day-to-day experiences, from the prospect of ‘the struggle’ that
defies the passage of time, Andrei Gruzsniczki told us.

I’ve picked this less commercial
topic while observing elderly people, seeing how difficult it is for them to
make a living. At the same time, I was also inspired by the story of a man whom
I was very fond of and whose enthusiasm and eagerness to experiment new things
were truly inspiring, despite his old age. Woody Allen once said that life is
both sad and short. This particular dichotomy, this love-and-hate attitude
towards life, is what I’ve tried to capture in this film, with the help of
these two characters. Of course, I’ve spiced the story up a bit by adding a
love story. I’ve set the characters into a rural, idyllic setting, where
everything is supposed to be wonderful, since there’s this ongoing cliché that
life is beautiful and perfect in the countryside. In fact, the two characters
feel very lonely and abandoned, which is why the stories that develop in their
wake can either bring them closer together or, on the contrary, set them
further apart. Obviously, the film also follows the transformations the two
characters undergo, as both Emil and Titi give up on their prior assumptions
and come to embrace conflicting beliefs, the other’s beliefs. They both
experience a willingness to maintain their friendship, their very special
relationship. Emil is the positive one, who goes to the doctor and who doesn’t
believe in the power of holy relics, while Titi, at the outset of the film, is exactly
the opposite.

Andrei Gruzsniczki’s debut
film, The Other Irina, won the Grand Prize and the FIRPRESCI Award at the CinePécs
Moveast IFF 2008, was designated best Romanian feature at the 2009 Transylvania
International Film Festival and scooped the ANONIMUL Trophy the very same year.
His second feature, Quod Erat Demonstrandum (Q.E.D.), grabbed international
awards, including the Jury’s Special Prize at the 2013 Film Festival in Rome,
the Golden Taiga Award at the 2014 Spirit of Fire International Debut Film
Festival, and Prix de Syndicat Francais de la Critique de Cinema at the 2014
Arras International Film Festival.

Zavera, Andrei Gruzsniczki’s
third feature, was premiered worldwide in November, 2019, in the official
competition of the International Film Festival in Cairo. For his first two
features, Andrei Gruzsniczki worked together with Vivi Drăgan Vasile for image
editing and with Tudor Panduru for Zavera. For No Rest for the Old Lady he
co-opted Laurențiu Răducanu for image directing. The film’s cast includes Mircea
Andreescu, Valer Dellakeza, Gabriel Spahiu, Marian Negrescu, Simona Urs, Ștefan
Mirea, Valeriu Bâzu and Eugen Titu. Andrei Gruzsniczki told us more:

I like to have young people
on my team, to see how they work together. I spoke to Tudor Panduru long before
making my third film, but we only got together for Zavera, when he had already
directed a number of films. For this film I also wanted to work together with a
young cameraman, Laurențiu Răducanu,
who was extraordinary. As for the actors, I couldn’t pick young, unexperimented
people for this film, as the story didn’t allow it. What I wanted to do was to
pinpoint the action in the film, which is why the filming screw spent a couple
of months in Oltenia, in the Drăgășani area. I’ve picked the location because I
decided to cast local actors. I worked with actors from Craiova and Târgu Jiu
and I used a lot of stuntmen who performed admirably. As regards the leading
actors, I would like to say that Mircea Andreescu and Valer Dellakeza are two extraordinarily
gifted actors.

The
film is produced by Andreea Dumitrescu, Oana Bujgoi-Giurgiu and Anamaria Antoci.
No Rest for the Old Lady was filmed in spring, 2019, and completed
post-production at the end of 2020. (V.P.)