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  • Mammalia, a surrealist drama directed by Sebastian Mihăilescu

    Mammalia, a surrealist drama directed by Sebastian Mihăilescu

    The surrealist drama Mammalia, directed by Sebastian Mihăilescu, had its world premiere in the Forum section of the 73rd edition of the Berlin International Film Festival and has recently entered cinema halls across Romania. The film was screened for the first time in Romania in Cluj-Napoca as part of the Transylvania International Film Festival – TIFF. The film was also selected at the Uruguay Film Festival and was included in the SMART7 Competition, an itinerant program that highlights innovative voices and which is founded by seven prestigious festivals. Mammalia was also shown at Kino Pavasaris in Vilnius (Lithuania) and IndieLisboa (Portugal). Mammalia (a Romania-Germany-Poland coproduction) is a surreal journey through the crisis of masculinity, written by Sebastian Mihăilescu and Andrei Epure, and it combines drama with mystery and comedy.



    Sebastian Mihăilescu spoke at RRI about how he came to make a film, about the type of filmmaking in Mammalia, about the SMART7 competition and the international trajectory of the film: In terms of approach, I tried to get closer to a poetic cinema. A poetic cinema that makes full use of the cinema means, obviously, such as editing, time, light, and for this reason I also assumed the film as an analog medium. I probably chose this approach also because I’m afraid of time. It’s all about my struggle with time, my fear of time, things that I also shared during the Q & A sessions. Regarding SMART7, it’s the first time that a Romanian film is selected in this circuit. This month the film will also have two screenings in Reykjavík, I will definitely attend one of them, and it will also be screened in Thessaloniki. Returning to the discussion about time, for me, cinema is my second career, which I started at 27. Before starting filmmaking, I was an IT engineer. This year I turned 40 and I think this is a turning point for any human being. I was not really happy with my IT career at the time, that’s why I abandoned it. Initially I wanted to be a painter, but I didn’t have the courage, then I wanted to be an architect, again I didn’t have the courage. That’s how I ended up at the Polytechnic University, but at the same time I studied design, I continued to paint and do street art. But the wish to express myself through art was always there, it remained there, I tried to express myself somehow, and somehow the film connected all these skills, namely my passion for writing, my passion for painting, image and photography.



    In Mammalia, István Téglás plays Camil, a 39-year-old man who embarks on an oneiric journey where the mundane and the fantastic intertwine. Having lost control over his work, his social status and his love relationship, Camil embarks on a quest that makes him question his identity and his masculinity. As he follows his partner, he ends up in a bizarre community with disturbing rituals, where he eventually experiences a tragicomic reversal of roles.



    István Téglás admits that the role of Camil was one of the most demanding in his entire career: It was very difficult for me, and I often got anxious. This way of working on a film, when you never know what’s going to happen the next day, obviously creates all kinds of moods for you. Moreover, after several days of work you start getting tired, given that you have many shooting sessions a day, sometimes from five in the morning, for example. But I tried to focus, I tried to be present, that was the most important thing, and I think I succeeded. Indeed, it was a very demanding and physical role, and I say this even though I am used to this kind of work, I have played demanding roles in theater shows as well. So I was trained, prepared in that sense, but there were quite a few challenges. For example, I had to go into the water at the end of October, when it was cold outside. In these conditions, the diving suit helps you up to a point, but beyond that, all you need is to be resilient. Mammalia is a film where the director gave me freedom, but he also gave me a kind of direction, because the situations I had to perform were clear. So I didn’t feel lost for a second.



    István Téglás also talked about the collaboration he had on Mammalia with non-professional actors: In general, I like to work with people who don’t have a degree in acting because it seems to me that they have a much greater openness than professional actors. I knew this, I wanted to work with amateur actors, this has actually happened. We got along very well and, in a way, in those moments, I let them lead me more, instead of me leading them. And I enjoyed doing that, although generally, as an actor, it’s not easy to do that. Because you want or are tempted, most of the time, to lead the whole play. But the Mammalia experience was a happy case.



    Besides István Téglás, the cast of the movie Mammalia includes Mălina Manovici, Denisa Nicolae, Steliana Bălăcianu, Rolando Matsangos, Mirela Crețan, Andreea Gheorghe, Mircea Bujoreanu, Marian Pîrvu, Dan Zarug Mihai and Elena Chingălată. (LS)

  • A new Golden Bear for Romania

    A new Golden Bear for Romania

    The top prize of the
    68th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, the
    prestigious cinematographic event that dominates the beginning of each year,
    goes to a Romanian production for the second time. Adina Pintilie on Saturday
    night won the Golden Bear trophy for her film Touch Me Not, as well as the best
    first feature award. Adina Pintilie was visibly touched and surprised when she
    got up on the Berlinale stage to receive the top prize.




    Her film is about
    intimacy as a fundamental aspect of human existence. A European co-production
    shot over a period of 10 weeks between 2015 and 2017 and with a mixed cast of
    professional and non-professional actors, Touch Me Not follows a series of
    characters craving intimacy and at the same time being afraid of it. A woman
    and two men, alone and lost in the cold immensity of the city, come together
    looking for authentic human contact.




    On the border
    between fiction, documentary and visual art, the film had mixed reviews in
    Berlin. It competed for the Golden Bear alongside 18 other productions, many of
    which were about migration and portraits of artists, despite there being no
    overarching theme, as noted by Reuters. Touch Me Not was a surprise choice, a
    film that shocked viewers with some explicit scenes, Reuters also notes. The
    film is an invitation to dialogue and to embrace otherness, said Pintilie, who
    also admitted that her film may not exactly make for comfortable viewing. We
    wanted to award prizes not just for what cinema can
    do and where it is, but where it could go in the future, said the German director and president of the
    Berlin Film Festival jury Tom Tykwer,
    explaining the jury’s decision.




    Adina Pintilie’s award comes at a time when Romania is
    recognised as a force to be reckoned with in world cinema. The so-called
    Romanian New Wave started with Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr Lazarescu and was
    followed by Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which won the
    Cannes Festival in 2007, and Calin Peter Netzer’s Child’s Pose, the winner of
    the Golden Bear in Berlin five years ago. The list should also include Radu
    Jude’s Aferim!, which received a Silver Bear in 2015.

  • “Aferim” by Radu Jude, winner of the Silver Bear for Best Director

    “Aferim” by Radu Jude, winner of the Silver Bear for Best Director

    “Radu Jude’s most accomplished and original feature yet,” is how Variety describes “Aferim!,” the third feature film by the Romanian director, after it was selected in the official competition of the Berlin International Film Festival held over February 5th-15th. The weekly appreciates the director’s choices and the way in which the prejudices of that time were brought on screen through the script written by Radu Jude and Florin Lazarescu, as well as the performance of the actors, especially of Toma Cuzin, and Marius Panduru’s black-and-white photography. In turn, the Hollywood Reporter also praises Radu Jude’s latest film: “It feels like a strong prize contender based on its striking look, timely subject and surprisingly funny script. Contemporary anti-Roma racism in Eastern Europe has inspired a string of powerful movies in recent years. But Aferim! digs deeper into the historical roots of this timely subject as Jude and his co-writer, novelist Florin Lazarescu, draw on real accounts of gypsy slavery for inspiration. Most importantly, they also manage to make this grim topic both funny and personal, not a dour social-realistic sermon,” The Hollywood Reporter also writes.



    One of the largest-scale film projects in Romania in the last few years, “Aferim!” is a history lesson, with a plot set in the early 19th Century Wallachia, where gypsies were slaves. A constable, played by actor Teodor Corban, accompanied by his son played by Mihai Comanoiu tries to bring back a runaway gypsy slave, played by Toma Cuzin. “Aferim!” was shot in the Macin Mountains in Dobrudja, South-Eastern Romania and around Giurgiu, in southern Romania, on a budget of 1.4 million euros. Most of the set was reconstructed to recapture the Turkish influence. The name of the film is actually a Turkish word meaning “well-done.” Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu, the historical adviser on this film, explains that “It is a question that has been asked for centuries, the question whether or not gypsies are human beings, and where they come from. It was a constant search, particularly in mid-19th century.” Here is director Radu Jude with more:



    “The film is not only about slavery. But since this is a topic rarely discussed, gypsy slavery is what stands out. There are a lot of other themes that the film approaches, such as the role of women in society, religion, how ideas are passed on from person to person, tolerance, they are all present in the film. What I meant to convey is that a social phenomenon, just like a personal occurrence, is at least partially rooted in the more or less distant past. We often overlook this aspect. We should take some responsibility to the past, and sometimes we do not want to or find it difficult to take responsibility. I believe societies experience the same thing that Freud talks about with respect to individuals, namely that whatever we try to repress will always surface somehow. That is why, I believe it is important for any society to periodically remember more or less pleasant aspects in its history.”



    According to film critic Andrei Gorzo, “the most important Romanian film since 2010, that is since Andrei Ujica’s ‘Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu’ and Cristi Puiu’s ‘Aurora’, is called ‘Aferim!’, and brings its director Radu Jude, born in 1977 and currently at his third feature film, very close to the leading position in the group of the most notable contemporary Romanian directors. This work of art, which will become a classic in the Romanian film industry, is also an echoing intervention on the agenda of the current public debates.” Here is director Radu Jude again:



    “I had all sorts of sources of inspiration, and not all of them from cinema. Actually, what interested me most, was how you can make a historical reconstruction without deceiving the audience, giving them the illusion that they get a glimpse of life captured on camera. And here there are a lot of debates: some cinema theorists are against historical films, saying that this kind of films denies the fundamental nature of cinema. Anyway, I wanted to make a film, though it’s difficult to place it historically, so I wanted viewers to realize that what they saw was only a film and that they must question the respective images and come up with their own answers. In ‘Aferim!’ the convention is a little over-stated, which is neither a good nor a bad thing. It is only an attempt to warn the audience so as not to take things for granted.”



    One of the intentions underlying his latest film, Radu Jude also says, is to make a comparative survey of the history of mentalities, to question some of the ready-made ideas and customs of the time. Radu Jude:



    “What I have in mind are those people who have some openness to the communication involved in any work of art, including a book or a film. I used a sentence that impressed me a lot. Wittgenstein ends his first book saying that he hopes the book to be only a ladder for readers to climb, and in the end they should throw away the ladder and think for themselves. Of course, I’m not Wittgenstein, but this is what I’d like, too: I’d like my film to be a small step in a direction that the audience would follow on their own and get a lot farther than where the film takes them.”



    A production by Hi Film, Radu Jude’s feature film, “Aferim!” will have its premiere in Romanian cinema halls in early March.