The project which attracted the most one-on-one meetings was Balaur, an erotic thriller presented by debuting director Octav Chelaru, who was the lone director seeking a producer. The script, which he started writing during his Villa Kult Residency at the Berlinale, mixes sex and religion in the tale of a teacher married to the town’s priest. After a run-in with one of her teen-age students in her religion class, he confronts her and the two embark on a taboo relationship that leads to blackmail.
The second most-requested project, La Civil by director Teodora Ana Mihai, won the festival’s 5,000 EUR prize from the Romanian Film Centre (CNC) and the Villa Kult Residency award. The film, which began with two years of research as a documentary, is being developed into an investigative thriller fiction feature with a documentary style. The story is set in Mexico, where a woman’s daughter has been kidnapped and possibly murdered by a local drug cartel. Without support from local authorities, she begins her own investigation, which irritates both the cartel and the politicians. The film is planned as a Romanian/Belgian/Mexican coproduction from producer Irina Malcea of Luna Film. Financing will continue through 2018, with shooting planned for spring 2019.
Bicycle by debut director Radu Matei Barbulescu and produced by Alien Film is a bittersweet comedy inspired by the true story set during the Cold War era of a 70-year-old man who sets off to bicycle across the continent, and his involvement with the Romanian government who sees him as a propaganda tool. The first draft of the script is completed and the film is seeking a German coproducer.
Libra Film Production is the producer of Vladimir Dembinski’s debut film Crissea, a love story set on the Danube Delta. A fisherman looking to earn some money hopes to use his ship to take tourists on tours of the Delta. Visiting a cruise ship, he encounters his high school sweetheart, who is working there, and the two plan to run away together. The film, which is in early development, has a budget of 750,000 and is looking for coproducers.
