Producer Anda Ionescu at the Berlinale Talents

Three Romanian filmmakers attended the Berlinale Talents workshop this year

Corina Sabău, 07.08.2021, 14:00

Three Romanian filmmakers attended the Berlinale Talents workshop this year, held at the Berlin Film Festival between March 1 and 5, 2021. They are producer Anda Ionescu, director of photography Boroka Biro, and actor Marina Palii. Our guest today is Anda Ionescu, producer of four Romanian films that premiered in 2020 at international film festivals: Mia Missed Her Revenge, by Bogdan Theodor Olteanu, Otto the Barbarian, by Ruxandra Ghitescu, We Against Us, by Andra Tarara, and Our Father, by Andrei Dascalescu.

Anda Ionescu came into contact with cinema as an industry while she was studying in Denmark, at Aarhus University. While there, she founded the Aarhus Short Film Challenge, a short film festival meant to encourage students and graduates to make independent films. During that period, together with a few friends passionate by films, she created Film Sense, an association focused on educational programs, and on developing a platform to promote cinema. In 2016, she was part of an international team that worked on a science fiction miniseries filmed in Qatar. After that experience, she worked as a producer on the four films that premiered in 2020, getting involved in their development and financing. We talked to Anda Ionescu about the selection to the Berlinale Talents workshop selection, and about the four Romanian films launched last year, for which she was a producer. Berlinale Talents, an event at the Berlin International Film Festival, brought together this year beginner filmmakers, offering them the opportunity to meet more people of their craft, creating connections, as well as a place to offer them intensive workshops with celebrities. Here is producer, Anda Ionescu:

“It was a week focused on a lot of information, new things, discussions, debates, a very creative week. It is interesting to go into a bubble for 5 days, where morning to evening you are continuously involved in programs, having to choose between available opportunities, and take advantage of them as much as you can. It was a special experience. This experience is important for everyone in the film industry, but more so for the producers, for us it is essential to work with other producers, because sometimes it is preferable to share producing a film between several partners. That is why these workshops and events are very useful, they bring people together, they help you to find collaborators for future projects, it is important to carry things further and take them to the next level. At the same time, thanks to the Berlinale Talents, I had access to meetings and discussions with directors and set designers, and I learned a lot from them. It was an opportunity to chat for an hour with artists such as Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul or documentary maker Kirsten Johnson. I had very important discussions with people you don’t often get a chance to contact, an opportunity for development on several levels.

With Tangaj Production, where she is an associate together with Anamaria Antoci, Anda Ionescu made two independent films, meaning without financing from the National Cinematography Center, the CNC: Mia Missed Her Revenge, by Bogdan Theodor Olteanu, and the documentary We Against Us, by Andra Tarara. Through Alien Film she was delegate producer for Otto the Barbarian, by Ruxandra Ghitescu, and for Our Father, by Andrei Dascalescu, she was principal producer. Here is Anda Ionescu talking about what motivated her to get involved in these projects:

“I think I resonated a lot with the stories and their authors. Before getting to the two projects, those by Andra Tarara and Andrei Dascalescu, I didn’t know I had an inclination towards personal documentaries, but I realized I am attracted by this area. However, all four projects attracted me from the start, I felt they are authentic, and I think the first step is to resonate with the proposals. As a producer, you have to be motivated, to like what you do very much, to believe in the project to make it happen. I wanted to work on diverse projects, and work hard to learn, there was this energy right from the start. And things came together, and I met the right people to see these projects through. I am glad, because I was interested in all these things, I wanted to see how you work on a documentary, I wanted to work with beginner directors, but also with experienced producers, at their second or third film, like Theodor Olteanu and Andrei Dascalescu. So working on these four films was a complex experience, since they are so different. It was intense and demanding at some point, because all these films had their premiere the same year. But it was all well in the end, and I will carry on with the same energy.