CLASAT/ DISMISSED the feature film written and directed by Horia Cucută and George ve Gänæaard, named “Best Romanian Film” in the “Romanian Film Days” section at TIFF 2024, will be accessible online only between April 24-27, on the website clasat.ro. Online access can be already purchased, from all over Romania, as well as from abroad. Users are invited to participate in the online premiere during the mentioned period and to purchase a viewing in advance from a favorite device of their choice.
Made independently, CLASAT is a film that starts from a documented, increasingly worrying reality, in which technological development accelerates at a much faster pace than our collective ability to understand, regulate, or ethically control it. How much control technology has on our lives, how vulnerable we remain in the face of increasingly opaque structures are just some of the questions that formed the basis of the script. And its form - a “fake documentary” about a fictional journalistic investigation into the death of an employee in a corporation and the impact of AI - is suitable for a launch in the environment it talks about: the internet. The website clasat.ro was created by Glitch and developed by Admirtech.
TRAILER: https://youtu.be/I05u6dROkVE
“Our approach, of intertwining journalistic realism with cinematographic techniques, is a premiere in the Romanian film landscape. This offers a level of authenticity that makes the audience wonder if what they are seeing is fiction or documentary. Our goal is to provoke discussion, critical thinking, and to bring to light ignored aspects of the AI revolution, offering a human perspective on the hidden costs of technological progress,” say directors Horia Cucută and George ve Gänæaard.
Romanian actor Daniel Popa plays Gabriel Vânătoru, a “veteran” journalist of the independent press in Romania, who begins an investigation on his own when he suspects that a corporation called FUTURA AI is trying to cover up the fire in which an employee died. During the investigation, he discovers an AI that was supposed to revolutionize content moderation on the internet, a toxic working environment, and the story of the employee Eremia Țofan who had become a problem for the corporation after a religious conversion. Intrigued by the way the authorities and the company involved acted to stop the subject from appearing in the press, Vânătoru tries to interview the people who knew Eremia or worked with him, reconstructing piece by piece, a puzzle of the events that led to that incident.
The film also stars actors: Emilian Oprea, Liviu Pintileasa, Silva Helena Schmidt, Dana Marineci, Ionuț Grama, Sabina Lazăr, Robi Urs, Mihaela Trofimov, Cezar Antal, Bogdan Albulescu, Axel Moustache, Alin Florea, Răzvan Ilie, Andreea Hristu, Cosmin Teodor Pană, Ionuț Iftimiciuc, Larisa Ioana Enache, Oana Predescu, Silviu Debu, Grațiela Popa, Neculai Predica, Alin Boeru, and Vlad Ghinea.
“We were inspired by true crime documentaries, where the narrative is built gradually, through fragments of testimonies, and the public must unravel the truth among the contradictions and silences of the interviewees. The theme of AI and technological ethics came into the equation later, when we discovered a Time magazine investigation into how OpenAI subcontracted workers from Kenya to manually filter toxic content, thus helping to train AI models. This was the moment we realized we wanted to tell a story about those who remain invisible behind technological progress,” mention Horia Cucută and George ve Gänæaard.
CLASAT/ DISMISSED is a film produced by the Romanian independent company MC PATRAT FILM.
George ve Gänæaard and Horia Cucută have co-directed five short films to date, which have had over 120 selections in festivals from numerous countries and have won 19 awards together in countries such as the United States of America, Spain, Romania, Greece, Iran, or Poland. In 2023, they started working on their debut feature film, CLASAT/ DISMISSED, a fake-documentary inspired by real events. In 2024, they began their journey in festivals, winning the award for best Romanian feature film at TIFF in the Romanian Film Days competition. The two are co-founders of mc² film, along with Alin Boeru, Valentin Paduraru, and Vlad Ghinea, an independent production collective. Since 2014, the team has focused on film and video production. Thus, between 2014-2020, it produced an 80-minute omnibus, Țigara de după (The After Cigarette), composed of ten short films, and six other stand-alone short films (Dușmanul/The Enemy, July Love, America, Mothers), with many awards and selections at international film festivals.
In 2020, MC PATRAT FILM officially became a production house, backed by the creative duo George ve Gänæaard & Horia Cucută. In this new formula, the two have produced three short films as well as their debut feature film, CLASAT/ DISMISSED. And currently, they are working on the animated short film MANECHIN (MANNEQUIN).
More details on the social media pages of MC PATRAT FILM:
Facebook - Instagram - //www.youtube.com/@mcpatratfilm2166">YouTube - //www.tiktok.com/@mcpatratfilm">TikTok
