Romanian films at Cannes

Corneliu Porumboiu's latest film, La Gomera, was premiered at Cannes this weekend

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Daniela Budu, 20.05.2019, 13:50

Corneliu
Porumboiu’s La Gomera / The Whistlers was premiered on Saturday
at the 72nd edition of the Cannes Film Festival at the Grand Theatre Lumiere. The film was
received with a standing ovation at the end, according to the official Facebook
page of the event. Included in the official selection for the Palme d’Or, La Gomera is Corneliu Porumboiu’s fifth feature film, shot in
Romania, Spain and Singapore in 2018. The film casts Vlad Ivanov as the male
lead, Catrinel Menghia, Rodica Lazar and Sabin Tambrea, telling the story of
Cristi, a corrupt Romanian police officer involved in a 30 million-euro illicit
dealing with the mob, who ends up on La Gomera Island in Spain. Here he learns
El Silbo, a whistled language used by the locals. Corneliu Porumboiu believes
the screening in Cannes is very important so that a Romanian film can be distributed
at international level, claiming Romanian cinematography is thriving at
present.

The film has already received comprehensive reviews in international
film magazines. Variety writes that
the film’s plot is eccentric, reminding the viewer of a gangster noir, a genre that feels a little schematic and stifling for a
director normally so beautifully uncategorizable. In turn, IndieWire describes the film as a
polished mashup of genre motifs that suggests what might happen if the Ocean’s
11 gang assembled on the Canary Islands. The
Whistlers, the publication adds, could be ripe for an English-language
remake, and don’t be surprised if some hungry producer snaps up the rights. But
that possibility carries a touch of irony, since The Whistlers is already a
covert remake, since it revisits the energy and wit of heist movies before it,
as well as the filmmaker’s own structural sophistication of his previous works,
and revitalizes both traditions in the process, the IndieWire review also
reads.

In turn, RFI writes this is the first whistled film competing for the Palme d’Or in the history of the Cannes
Film Festival, adding that director Corneliu Porumboiu surprises his audience
with an unexpected police musical, toying with the conventions of the genre without
excluding love and humor. Corneliu Porumboiu returns to Cannes after winning in
2015 Un Certain Regard for his film The Treasure. In 2009 his film Police, Adjective was also rewarded with
the grand prize of the jury and the FIPRESCI prize in the Un Certain Regard section. Also at Cannes, in 2006, his debut
feature 12:08 East of Bucharest won the Camera d’Or prize. His latest feature, La Gomera, will be premiered in cinema
halls in Romania on September 13.

(Translated by V. Palcu)