Cannes: ‘Palme d'Or’ won by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu (May 28, 2007)

May 28, 2007 (Romania Report & sources)

Romanian director Cristian Mungiu won the Cannes Film Festival's top prize Sunday with "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," a harrowing portrait of an illegal abortion in Communist-era Romania. A hard-hitting picture has walked away with the ‘Palme d'Or’. Earlier this weekend, Romanian Cristian Nemescu director posthumously won a secondary competition called "Un Certain Regard."

The low-budget, post-post-modernist film about a student who goes through horrors to ensure that her friend can have a secret abortion beat out 21 other movies in competition for the Riviera festival's top prize, the ‘Palme d'Or’.

With only 10 to 15 films produced annually, accounting for a bare four percent of tickets sold at home, Romania's new generation of directors, trained at the country's sole film school, are relative newcomers to the scene.

But film festivals have been paying increasing attention to the eastern European country's young directors in the last years.

At this year's 12-day Cannes film festival, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days", a devastating tale of backstreet abortions and daily despair during communist-era Romania, has wowed critics to become a leading favourite among the 22 films competing for the ‘Palme’.

A low-budget movie produced with about 650,000 euros, it is 39-year-old director Cristian Mungiu's third feature.

Industry bible Variety called it "pitch perfect and brilliantly acted" and commended the director for "purity and honesty."

His "Occident" -- about Romania's rocky road from the Soviet bloc to the West -- was warmly received at Cannes in 2002 in the parallel Director's Fortnight section.

Alongside the Official Competition trophies, other two prizes were awarded to “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days” by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu:

- The Jury of the FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) awarded the International Critics Prize;

- The French National Education Administration Prize, which singles out films for their usefulness as learning resources. The jurors are teachers and other members of the community of educators, as well as people from the film world. Actress Bernadette Laffont was the president of this year's jury. The winning film will be issued as a teaching DVD which will facilitate approach to it and elicit analysis and debate in the classroom.


Other Romanian director posthumously awarded Prix ‘Un Certain Regard’

Earlier this weekend, Romanian Cristian Nemescudirector posthumously won a secondary Cannes competition called "Un Certain Regard." Nemescu tragically died in a car crash last year at age 27, leaving his "California Dreamin'" incomplete. Jurors had initially decided not to judge the film, about American soldiers in a small Romanian village, but changed their minds when they saw it.

On Saturday, the festival's sidebar section called ‘Un Certain Regard’, focusing on new upcoming directorial talent, handed its top prize to another Romanian feature -- "California dreamin'" by Cristian Nemescu, who tragically died in a car accident last year aged 27, before totally completing the film.

"It is by far the liveliest and most free film idea we have seen here," said French filmmaker Pascale Ferran, on handing out the award.

The film is set in a small Romanian village in 1999, during the war in Kosovo, when a US-guarded NATO train transporting equipment but not carrying official documents is stopped by the railway station chief -- also a gangster.


***

Only two years ago another Romanian movie, "The Death of Mr Lazarescu" by Cristi Puiu, dubbed one of the year's 10 best films by the New York Times, also won the Un Certain Regard prize.

And last year a first feature by Corneliu Porumboiu, "12:08 East of Bucharest" won the festival's Golden Camera prize for best first film.

"There has been lots of interest in our films, which range from fiction to animation, mostly from Europeans," said Andreea Tanase of the Romanian National Film Centre.

"It's been magnificent for us. We're delighted by the reaction to our films here," Tanase told AFP.

Romanian films have been snapped up this fest for a number of influential international film festivals including one in Turkey, one in Marrakech, Morocco, and in Paris.



Romania Report & sources