A Prince and a Half is the third
film directed by Ana Lungu. It had its world premiere at the 2018 Sarajevo Film
Festival, and can be seen in Romania as of September. The film tells the story
of a charismatic trio: a divorced father, played by Marius Manole, a single
woman, played by Iris Spiridon, and a gay man, played by Istvan Teglas. They
live together in an apartment in Bucharest, and the point of tension appears
the moment Iris falls in love with a Hungarian writer from Transylvania, played
by Laszlo Matray. Here is Ana Lungu:
A Prince and a Half is related to two
previous projects of mine. I worked on my first movie, The Belly of the Whale,
with a friend of mine, Ana Szel, and this time I’ve made the movie with another
good friend of mine, Iris Spiridon. In both cases, we decided that we would
write scripts inspired by their life, and right from the start we decided that
they would play the leading role. It is true that we tried to recreate a
certain world, a certain social crust, that of people around 30 or 40 years of
age, who are still trying to seek their place in contemporary Romanian society.
These are people that are somewhat aimless, maladapted. For this reason, we
picked our characters to be a divorced dad, a gay guy and a single woman. I
believe that what characterizes this generation, to which I belong, and which
is depicted in the movie, is the fact that it does not play by the classical
rules of maturity. I tried not to pass judgment or make value judgments, but I
believe that the family in which I grew up, a traditional family, is less and
less encountered. This was another topic that continues to concern us, me and
my co-writer, Iris Spiridon.
Iris Spiridon, lead actress and
co-writer of the movie, plays an actress with a fairly alien universe: she
loved Jesus as a small girl, reads one book per day, and will only act in
productions that she deems artistically valuable. Here is Iris Spiridon talking
about the film:
We find in this film all the topics
that preoccupy us, Ana and me. We have been talking for years about these
things, the two of us and our friends have become accustomed to speaking openly
about these things. I dislike talking about banal things, and I find myself
talking about serious things, even when talking to strangers. I ask them if
they have faith, what they think about love, I ask them about serious things.
Which is why many times people feel scared about questions like that, but I
think that it is the only solution if you don’t want to waste time. I have
decided, together with Ana, to introduce in the movie this topic of death, a
topic that concerns me a lot, and is present in all my shows. During the
shooting of the movie itself, one friend of mine happened to pass away, and
that made me think even more seriously about these things. But it all started
with my friend, and with Marius and Istvan, and I remember I wrote to Ana that
it would be a pity for this relationship to get lost. I thought that these
things would do well to be preserved somewhere, for this story to be
immortalized somewhere, because we may never be this way again. This was our
youth, and it seemed proper for it to remain somewhere.
Ana Lungu told us what it was like
to make a film with friends, for a small amount of money, without financing
from the National Cinema Center, a film in which people play themselves:
As Iris herself was saying, and as
actor Marius Manole jokingly pointed out, this movie has been repeating itself
for the last fifteen years, when they have been having this friendship. As for
our work methodology, here is how it goes: we started making a script, which we
wrote and re-wrote for two years. We had fun, but, as in any serious endeavor,
we had tough moments, when we couldn’t find solutions for the movie. Our
intention was to build a few situations which we rehearsed, we filmed the
rehearsals, and picked what we liked. This was how we worked. I think that the
lack of budgeting can in this case be considered an advantage, because we had a
very small team, and I, as a director, like a lot to work with small teams,
which I believe helps people be more like themselves.
In addition to the actors we already
mentioned, the movie ‘A Prince and a Half’ also features director Radu Afrim
and choreographer Razvan Mazilu.
