Radio România Internațional

Tag: Gomera

  • Romanian film industry awards

    Romanian film industry awards

    Originally announced for the end of March, the Gopo Gala, which rewards the best Romanian films of the previous year, was rescheduled over the coronavirus pandemic and has taken place now, under the state of alert.



    The event, held outdoors, saw its red carpet accompanied by a disinfection tunnel, and warnings regarding the 1.5m physical distancing rules were printed on cut-outs featuring the character created by Ion Popescu-Gopo, the one after whom the gala is named.



    The COVID-19 pandemic was in fact mentioned by the host of the show, who was brought on stage in a special isolation stretcher by 4 people wearing protective coveralls: “a virus that took us into a difficult period, a virus which is more popular than any other film tonight.



    The big winner of the Gopo Gala was “La Gomera, directed by Corneliu Porumboiu, which walked home with 9 trophies, including the ones for the best feature film, best director and best screenwriting. Upon receiving the award for the best script, Porumboiu mentioned the plot of the movie, which focuses on an island where whistling is used as a language: “I didnt learn how to whistle, but I think I managed to write a pretty good script.



    The award for the best leading actor went to Iulian Postelnicu for his performance in Andrei Cohns “Arrest, and the best leading actress was Judith State, for the film “Monsters by Cătălin Mitulescu.



    The winners thanked their teams and fellow filmmakers, but they also spoke about the film industrys need for concrete support. Producer Ada Solomon called for support when she received the award for the best documentary for “The distance between me and myself, by Dana Bunescu and Mona Nicoară. “Romanian cinematography speaks through animation, through documentary, through fiction, and these genres are increasingly intertwined. I believe a little more interest in the Romanian documentary is something we all deserve, Ada Solomon emphasised.



    After the gala, the initiator and main organiser of the event, the film director Tudor Giurgiu told Radio Romania:



    Tudor Giurgiu: “We were very happy to see the Gopo Gala take place physically, rather than online, because I think people need this kind of meetings, of socialising, with all the physical distancing requirements in place. And I also believe tonight was a miracle, the film community were happy to feel like, step by step, they are returning to life before the pandemic.



    The special awards of this years edition went to writer Radu Cosaşu and film editor Cristina Ionescu for their exceptional careers, while actors Adela Mărculescu and Virgil Andriescu received lifetime achievement awards.


    (translated by Ana-Maria Popescu)

  • Romanian Films in Cannes

    Romanian Films in Cannes

    Two Romanian films have their premieres at the 72nd edition of the Cannes Film Festival, running between May 14 and 25. La Gomera, directed by Corneliu Porumboiu, was included in the official competition, while the short film The Last Trip to the Seaside, directed by Adi Voicu, was screened in the Semaine de la Critique section.



    La Gomera, Corneliu Porumboiu’s fifth feature length fiction movie, was filmed on location in Romania, Spain, and Singapore in 2018, featuring a Romanian and Spanish cast. Cristi is a corrupt Romanian cop involved in a 30 million Euro deal with organized crime, who goes to the La Gomera island, in order to learn El Silbo, the local whistling language. This coded kind of communication is supposed to help him free Zsolt, a drug dealer in detention in Bucharest, and the only member of the drug ring who knows where the money is hidden. Corneliu Porumboiu told us how he came about the story:



    Corneliu Porumboiu: I was in France, and I saw a documentary about the island and this language. This was ten years ago, as I was finishing Police, Adjective, and the documentary stuck in my head. I started reading up on the whistling language, and I envisaged the film as being a crime thriller. I wrote several versions, and four years ago I took it up again, and eventually realized that I will take it into the film noir genre. Making this movie took a lot of research. I used the Internet at first, then I went to the island to see what I was dealing with. Because there are things that you can’t just read about, you have to be there. I went to La Gomera three or four times, one week at a time. In addition, because the language is protected, and is taught in schools as a compulsory subject, I worked with a teacher, the head of the El Silbo language department, who came to Romania to coach the actors. This was my opportunity to work with an expert.



    Corneliu Porumboiu sees La Gomera as a natural extension of his preoccupations:



    Corneliu Porumboiu: “Theme wise, the movie is linked to two of my previous movies, Was It or Was It Not, and Police, Adjective, which were also centered on language. In Was It or Was It Not, an entire community was trying to define a concept, that of revolution, in order to understand what they had lived through, while Police, Adjective is a movie about bureaucratic and political language, so this movie came as a natural extension. I think all my movies deal with communication, it is one of my recurring themes.



    The short film The Last Trip to the Seaside, directed by Adi Voicu, screened in the Semaine de la Critique section, a section focusing on uncovering emerging talent in cinema, is the director’s second fiction short. The first was The Fog, which won awards in Angers and Sankt Petersburg. The plot unfurls in the compartment of a train going to the seaside. The six passengers converse, but one moment of suspicion derails the entire interaction. Before trying his hand at fiction, Adi Voicu directed, by himself or in collaboration, several documentaries, dealing with a variety of subjects, including the Danube Delta and Romanians in Ukraine. He said he would not limit himself to this type of movies, and that it doesn’t matter what form you give a story:



    Adi Voicu: “Fiction movies are cinema too, and if some stories go well as documentaries, others go better as fiction. I think this is the reason for which fiction appeared, out of the need to tell some stories when you cannot resort to documentaries. For example, you cannot film inside a police van as it goes to the police precinct, it’s against the law. Therefore, you have to resort to fiction to show a scene like that.



    One of the actors featured in the short film The Last Trip to the Seaside, Ana Ciontea, spoke to us ahead of the premiere in Cannes:



    Ana Ciontea: “I am very happy that the movie was selected for the Cannes festival, and I congratulate Adi Voicu, I believed in his films right from the start. It was a great experience to act in The Last Trip to the Seaside, the script won me over right away, even though Adi made some changes along the way. What also won me over was Adi’s attention to detail. During rehearsal I became convinced that I was going to be in a very good movie. Also, very importantly, Adi Voicu boosted our confidence. This moved me, and helped me very much.



    (translated by: Calin Cotoiu)

  • Corneliu Porumboiu filmează „Gomera”

    Corneliu Porumboiu filmează „Gomera”

    Filmul spune povestea lui Cristi, un ofițer de
    poliție care ajunge în insula La Gomera, în Spania, pentru a învăța limbajul El
    Silbo, o formă de comunicare prin fluierat, specifică zonei.



    Misiunea lui este de a-l elibera pe Zsolt, un
    afacerist controversat aflat în arest în București.




    Gomera îi are în distribuție pe Vlad Ivanov
    în rol principal, căruia i se alătură Catrinel Menghia (Marlon), Rodica Lazăr și
    Sabin Tambrea.




    Filmările au debutat pe 18 februarie, se vor
    încheia la sfârșitul lunii aprilie, și au loc în București și pe insula La
    Gomera din Spania    . Este prima producție semnată de cunoscutul regizor care va
    fi turnată și în afara României.




    Filmul, scris și regizat de Corneliu
    Porumboiu    , are imaginea semnată de Tudor Mircea, scenografia este realizată de
    Simona Pădurețu, designer de costume Dana Păpăruz, iar Arantxa Etcheverria
    Porumboiu este responsabilă de direcția artistică.




    Filmul se concentrează pe o posibilă folosire
    a limbajului ancestral, El Silbo, într-o lume în care comunicarea a devenit din
    ce în ce mai controlată, cu un conflict direct între verbal și non-verbal    ,
    declară Corneliu Porumboiu.




    În urmă cu câțiva ani am urmărit un
    documentar despre El Silbo. Acest limbaj fascinant, aflat pe cale de
    dispariție, redescoperit și folosit din nou pe insula La Gomera, m-a inspirat
    și motivat să scriu această poveste    , adaugă regizorul.




    Gomera este o producție 42 KM FILM în
    coproducție cu Les Films du Worso (Franța), Komplizen Film (Germania) și
    Arte Grand Accord. Producător este Marcela Ursu, iar producător executiv, Patricia
    Poienaru. Coproducători sunt Sylvie Pialat, Benoît Quainon, Janine Jackowski,
    Jonas Dornbach și Maren Ade. Agentul internațional de vânzari este MK2 Films.




    Lungmetrajul este realizat cu sprijinul
    Centrului Național al Cinematografiei și Eurimages și va fi lansat în
    cinematografele din România în 2019.