The film is produced by Thomas Ciulei and Europolis Film srl (site under construction) in co-production with Germany's Ciulei Films (site under construction) and France's La Vie Est Belle Film Associes (www.lavieestbellefilms.fr) .
The budget is €630,000. The project received a production grant of €268,000 from the National Centre for Cinema (www.cncinema.abt.ro) in 2009 and also a €8,540 development grant from the same institution in 2008. It is also supported with €100,000 by Eurimages (www.coe.int/t/dg4/eurimages), with €50,000 by FilmFernsehFonds Bayern (fff-bayern.de) and also by Bayerischer Rundfunk (www.br-online.de), Groupama Gan (www.groupama.com), the MEDIA Programme (ec.europa.eu/culture/media) and Romanian public television (www.tvr.ro).
The story is centered on 11-year-old, Dudi, whose parents are working in Italy and who remains in Romania with his grandfather, a retired miner. The film is a bildungsroman set against a sensitive social backdrop: 85,000 Romanians who are working abroad leave their children home to be taken care of by relatives. Moreover, mining is a dying profession in Romania as many of the mines began to close after 1990.
The main actors are Alexandru Czuli, Cornel Scripcaru and Remus Mărginean. Germany's Reinhold Vorschneider is the DOP. Postproduction might be completed in Germany, Ciulei told FNE.
Production Information:
Europolis Film
14 Tudor Arghezi street
020945 Bucharest, Romania
Phone/Fax: +40.21.316.80.79
Mobile: +40.744.644.147
Site under construction
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Ciulei Films
31 Cajetan street
81669 Munchen, Germany
Phone/Fax: 49.89.40.1784
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La Vie Est Belle Film Associes
45 Rue de la Mare
75020 Paris - France
Tel. +33 (0) 1 43 87 00 42
Credits:
Director: Alexandra Gulea
Script: Alexandra Gulea
DOP: Reinhold Vorschneider
Cast: Alexandru Czuli
Cornel Scripcaru
Remus Mărginean