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Official Selection - Competition 2017 / Breaking News / Romania 2017

A difficult assignment awaits TV reporter Alex. He must film a memorial portrait for a coworker who died in a tragic accident they both experienced but that only he survived. His colleague’s daughter becomes his guide, although her relationship to her father was more than complicated. Alex becomes an involuntary witness to the girl’s handling of her father’s death, and he also comes to believe that chronicling a person’s life involves more than just a short news report…

Synopsis

Following the tragic death of his cameraman, TV reporter Alex is assigned the difficult task of shooting a video obituary. He himself needs time to physically and mentally recuperate and to deal with his guilt over the fact that he alone came out of the accident alive. But instead of resting, he sets out to investigate his colleague’s private life. The only member of the family willing to help is the deceased’s daughter, whose relationship to her father was more than complicated. During three pre-Christmas days, Alex becomes an involuntary witness to the girl’s struggle to come to terms with the loss of her dad. At the same time he discovers that he didn’t really know the man he saw every day at work, although he was convinced of the contrary. In her third film, Romanian director Iulia Rugină deftly brings together several motifs: establishing whether we can really know another person, our fascination with others’ private worlds, the relationship between parents and children, and the tendency of contemporary media to sensationalize human affairs.

Anna Kořínek

About the film

81 min / Color, DCP
International premiere
Director Iulia Rugină / Screenplay Ana Agopian, Oana Rasuceanu, Iulia Rugină / Dir. of Photography Vivi Drăgan Vasile / Editor Cătălin Cristuțiu / Art Director Andreea Popa / Producer Tudor Giurgiu, Oana Giurgiu, Bogdan Crăciun / Production Hau-Hui Entertainment / Coproduction Libra Film Productions / Cast Andi Vasluianu, Voica Oltean, Dorin Andone, Ioana Flora, David Mihai Blaj / Contact Libra Film Productions

About the director

Iulia Rugină (b. 1982, Bucharest) holds a master’s degree in direction from the National University of Theater and Film in Romania. She has a dozen short films to her credit, on which she cooperated as writer and director. A random selection: Buna Cristina! Pa Cristina! (2006), Vineri in jur de 11 (2006), and Captivi de Craciun (2010): together they collected awards at festivals in Oberhausen, Munich, Trieste, Brussels, and Poitiers. Despite its ultralow budget of €50,000, in the year of its production, Love Building (2013) became the second most commercially successful movie in Romanian theaters. A year later she shot the sequel Another Love Building (Alt Love Building, 2014). In addition to directing, Rugină organizes cultural events and social projects. At present she is slogging away at her doctoral dissertation on the topic of low-budget films; she also teaches screenwriting.