"Toni & Friends" explores the relationships born during the process of making a film and reveals the less visible parts, often filled with tension, which populate the creative process.
The cast includes actors Ilinca Hărnuţ, Cătălina Moga, Alexandru Ion, Emil Măndănac, Gabriel Sandu, Elena Ivanca, and Patricia Brad. Horaţiu Curuţiu was the DOP of the film, the script was written by Ion Indolean and Adrian Cârlugea and the sound is signed by Cezar Enache and Sergiu Băcioiu.
The film follows Rebeca (Ilinca Hărnuţ), Iulia (Cătălina Moga) and Florin (Emil Măndănac), a team of documentary filmmakers, as they are trying to tell the story of Toni Oniga (Alexandru Ion), attempting to understand whether he is truly a star or just a neighborhood legend.
We do not know, and neither do they, what to expect from Toni, an archetypical exponent of the “smart guy” category that populates Romanian society.
The film is built as a story inside a story, the "fiction" part contains a part of the "documentary", filmed by actress Cătălina Moga, who is at her first experience with a camera.
Adopting this aesthetic experiment, "Toni & Friends" proposes a discussion about the limits that a professional may or may not cross, about the deontology of documentary filmmakers / journalists, about the possibilities and pitfalls of the audiovisual environment.
Adopting this aesthetic experiment, "Toni & Friends" proposes a discussion about the limits that a professional may or may not cross, about the deontology of documentary filmmakers / journalists, about the possibilities and pitfalls of the audiovisual environment.
These questions continue older preoccupations of director Ion Indolean, who, in his debut feature film - "Discordia", awarded at TIFF and nominated for GOPO Awards - explores the means of expression and temporal limits of the cinematic medium.
A graduate of the Faculty of Theater and Film at UBB Cluj-Napoca, where he is now a teacher, Ion Indolean began his career as a film critic. He has collaborated with famous national publications, such as Observator Cultural, PressOne, LiterNet. Later, and later on, he decided to expand his interests to film directing.
"Toni & Friends" is a completely independent Numa Film production. It is the first film made entirely in Cluj-Napoca selected at a Category A festival - FIAPF. Supported by Marty Restaurants, Narcoffee Roasters, Polaris Medical, Bamboo Fitness & Spa, Absolut Vodka, Cluj-Napoca City Hall and Local Council.
The official trailer can be accessed here: https://vimeo.com/393269826
