Festivals SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL
Sarajevo Believes in Romanian Films
| With three feature films by Romanian directors selected in the main competition, Romanian cinema became the best represented Southern and Eastern European national cinema in SFF’s most analysed section. Among these three films, the big winner was Lemonade, a Romanian-Canadian-German-Swedish co-production. Ioana Uricaru’s debut feature, which was inspired by the director’s own experiences and had its world premiere in Berlinale’s Panorama, received the “Heart of Sarajevo” award for Best Director. “When life gives you lemons, make a lemonade,” is a saying Mara (efficiently played by Graduation actress Mălina Manovici), the film’s protagonist, could benefit from. |
The Romanian films included in the competitive and non-competitive sections of this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF), which has reached its 24th edition, provide evidence of the huge diversity of Romanian contemporary cinema, which is no longer captive in the Puiu-Mungiu-Muntean realistic paradigm.
With three feature films by Romanian directors selected in the main competition, Romanian cinema became the best represented Southern and Eastern European national cinema in SFF’s most analysed section. Among these three films, the big winner was Lemonade, a Romanian-Canadian-German-Swedish co-production. Ioana Uricaru’s debut feature, which was inspired by the director’s own experiences and had its world premiere in Berlinale’s Panorama, received the “Heart of Sarajevo” award for Best Director. “When life gives you lemons, make a lemonade,” is a saying Mara (efficiently played by Graduation actress Mălina Manovici), the film’s protagonist, could benefit from.
She is a young Romanian woman, who wants to live her American dream, together with her nine-year-old son, but a depraved and manipulative immigration official stands in her way. Mara comes to realize how easily her dream can turn into a nightmare. Lemonade is a powerful realistic drama about a strong woman finding herself at the receiving end of men’s abuses. The strong and complex female protagonist, as well as the film’s sense of urgency bring to memory the Golden Palm winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days by Cristian Mungiu, who is also the producer of Uricaru’s film.
If Lemonade, although shot by an international crew in Northern America and spoken mostly in English, is clearly a New Romanian Cinema piece, the other two features by Romanian directors competing for the “Heart of Sarajevo” could easily be attributed to other national cinemas. Florin Şerban’s Love 1. Dog (winner of the special awards granted by Cineuropa and CICAE) could pass for a Turkish festival film, contemplative and slow-paced, while Ana Lungu’s One and a Half Prince resembles an intimate French dramedy, following in the footsteps of auteurs such as Rohmer and Rivette. Şerban’s third feature, a Romanian-Polish co-production, is a much less talkative film, as its story focuses on two lonely persons, hiding deep secrets (which are never fully disclosed to the audience). Lungu’s second individual feature, blending reality and fiction, is a reflexive film about three bohemian hipster friends, sharing their homes, their emotions and their dramas, and it includes a startling fantasy scene.
The short film competition also included two films by Romanian writers and directors. Cecilia Ştefănescu’s Morski Briz is an ambitious drama, whose female protagonist is torn between the comforting appearance of a solid family and the unexpected passion for a much younger man, whereas Emanuel Pârvu’s Everything Is Far Away is just another “slice of life” film aiming at revealing the actual relations between the members of a dysfunctional family.
| The rich and varied showcase of Romanian films in Sarajevo demonstrates there the already familiar realistic formula – imposed by Cristi Puiu in 2005, with the seminal film The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu – has generated, in Romanian cinema, multiple approaches to topics relevant both for the recent past and for the present, as well as a quest, among filmmakers, for finding their own identity and voice. |
The “In Focus” sidebar opened with Corneliu Porumboiu’s Infinite Football, a subtle documentary about a “superhero” from Vaslui (the director’s native town), whose dreams of a better world start with the most popular team sport. The section also featured Adina Pintilie’s feature debut, this year’s surprising Golden Bear winner, Touch Me Not. A Romanian-German-Czech-Bulgarian-French co-production, made with multinational cast and crew, it is one of the most daring and innovative films launched in the festival circuit in recent years.
Finally, Radu Jude’s “I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians” (a Romanian-Czech-French-Bulgarian-German co-production), the most recent Crystal Globe winner in Karlovy Vary, presented in the “Dealing with the Past”, is a playful political film about the artistic representation of historical trauma.
The rich and varied showcase of Romanian films in Sarajevo demonstrates there the already familiar realistic formula – imposed by Cristi Puiu in 2005, with the seminal film The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu – has generated, in Romanian cinema, multiple approaches to topics relevant both for the recent past and for the present, as well as a quest, among filmmakers, for finding their own identity and voice.
Mihai FULGER
