02-02-2012

PRODUCTION: Mungiu in production on Provisory

By Iulia Blaga

BUCHAREST: Palme d'Or winner Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) is currently filming Provisory, a drama inspired by the tragic death of a young woman in a Romanian Orthodox monastery in 2005.

Mungiu has been filming under the radar in Romania, but the real life case of Irina Cornici exploded in the local press in June 2005 after her in Romania's Tanacu monastery. Four nuns and one monk have been convicted in 2008 for Cornici confinement followed by her death, and were expelled from the church.

The tragic death of Cornici, a 24 year old woman raised in an orphanage, who decided to stay in the monastery of Tanacu after visiting her friend, is a contrast between two different cultures. Modern medicine treated her psychotic episode triggered by the confession with neuroleptics, while those in the monastery considered her possessed by the devil.

The story inspired a documentary, For God's Sake/Cazul Tanacu, made by Tatiana Niculescu-Bran and Ionuţ Teianu in 2007, and for some years director Lucian Pintilie was working on a feature film.

Cristian Mungiu is producing Provisory/Provizoriu with his company Mobra Films (www.mobrafilms.ro). The project is coproduced by Les Films du Fleuve, the Belgian company of Jean-Luc and Pierre Dardenne, together with the French company Why Not Productions (www.whynotproductions.fr).

The sales agent Wild Bunch (www.wildbunch.biz) has picked up the project recently and will start pre-sales at the Berlinale 2012.

Provisory/Provizoriu was supported by Romanian National Centre for Cinema (www.cncinema.abt.ro) with a grant of 273,103 Euro

(1,188,000 RON) in November 2011. It also won a grant of 400,000 Euro from Eurimages (www.coe.int) in December 2011.