Romanian Films at the Festival in Rotterdam

Corneliu Porumboius “When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism, Vlad Petris “Bucharest, Where Are You? and Radu Judes “Shadow of a Cloud are three Romanian productions selected to run in the Rotterdam International Film Festival

Corina Sabău, 08.02.2014, 12:33

Less known than the other two filmmakers, Vlad Petri graduated from the National University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest. He specialized as a documentary filmmaker and photographer and covered the social protests in Bucharest in 2012 and 2013, posting on line films and snapshots taken from the event. He is mainly interested in filming immediate, personal reality as well in exploring the social transformations he witnesses.

“I am mostly interested in covering street events, events that are taking place in the square, a public space of debates, initiatives and protests. I want to see how this space changes and the social impact it has. I’m interested in the people there, the way they talk and convey messages. I intend to go to University Square in downtown Bucharest more often and distribute my films exclusively on line trying to keep pace with the dynamics of the events,” says the director.

The documentary, “Bucharest, where are you?” is an outcome of Vlad Petri’s interest in the “square as a public space of debate”; the film was selected to represent Romania in the International Film Festival in Rotterdam.

Vlad Petri: “I have been working on this production for two years. And I was happy when it got selected, because this festival is one of the most important in Europe and we are waiting to see what feedback we get from there. The film features events that took place in Bucharest in 2012. We had a total of one hour and 20 minutes of footage in which we tried to tell a comprehensive and well-structured story. We tried to give the footage a thread leading people to a certain story.”

Radu Jude’s short film, “Shadow of a Cloud” tells the story of a priest, played by theatre director Alexandru Dabija, who is called on a hot summer day to give the last rites to a dying woman. “It’s a film full of meanings. Maybe the most important is a certain line in the priest’s prayer, “my miserable life went away like slumber, like a shadow of a cloud”, says director Radu Jude thus explaining the title of his film, which got selected last year for the “Quinzaine des Realisateurs” section of the Cannes Film Festival.

Director Radu Jude: “There is something inside that prompts me to see things in this way. Chekhov described that situation better, through a character in “Uncle Vanya”, who says; ‘I have for a long time believed that man’s destiny is to be tragic, but eventually I realized his destiny was to be ridiculous.’ And there is something funny about how people relate to their problems, something that doesn’t necessarily rule out sadness or suffering. So, I am particularly interested in this kind of situations, when sadness, misery and drama blend until they no longer border on the ridiculous.”

“I wish films to be as impure as possible. When I first started making films, I was very careful to be coherent in terms of style. I wanted to be very much aware of the process, very much in control, but I eventually realized that such an approach would actually waste energies which might take the film to other directions and lay emphasis on things that shouldn’t necessarily be emphasized”, Radu Jude said.

Just like his production “Police, Adjective”, director Corneliu Porumboiu’s latest film “When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism” has divided audiences into two groups: those who believe that a film has to have a story and those standing for a less narrative type of films. According to film critic Tudor Caranfil, the film is “a challenge, the most thrilling experimental film in Romanian cinematography”.

In turn, critic Andrei Gorzo has described it as “a hyper-subtle anti-romance”. The production features Paul, a film director played by Bogdan Dumitrache, who is shooting a film. He’s about to shoot a nude scene and has a series of discussions with his lead actress Alina played by Diana Avramut, with whom he has a love affair, with the producer played by Mihaela Sarbu, with a colleague and with a physician. The film has only 17 scenes, most of them fixed; in an interview director Porumboiu confessed his intention was to speak about the making of a film and the difficulties a director faces in the process.

Corneliu Porumboiu: “I was interested in the relationships between the characters and the story itself. I got the idea three years ago, when a new law of cinematography was about to be drafted. According to that draft law, a contest at the National Center of Cinematography involved scenes from a film. That triggered memories from my student years, when certain constraints were imposed. I recalled the time when I used to shoot scenes at home, timing every one of them. And this is how I got the idea of my future film, which also gives an insight into my debut in the filmmaking industry.”

The Rotterdam Film Festival, the most important in Benelux, brings together over 3000 journalists and professionals from the filmmaking industry. One of the main objectives of the festival is to promote the most talented young directors.