The film penned by Marian Crișan and Gabriel Andronache is a black comedy following a corrupt politician from Bucharest who arrives in a small town in Transylvania and who, trying to escape justice, decides to run for the EU parliament.
“Elections in small towns can sometimes be as passionate as running for US president. I found Romanian politics on this scale to be funny, but at the same time telling some truths about election psychology and schemes everywhere in the world,” Crișan said in a statement.
The film was shot in the director’s hometown of Salonta, in Northern Transylvania, in the autumn of 2018. Moldavian DoP Oleg Mutu, who shot Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Beyond the Hills (Mobra Films), did the lensing.
The German title of the film, Berliner, is taken from the famous quotation „Ich bin ein Berliner,” from the speech that John F. Kennedy gave in West Berlin in 1963, and which Germans mocked for its grammatical error which resulted in the translation: “I am a jam-filled doughnut.”
The film stars Ion Sapdaru and the cast includes Ovidiu Crișan, Sorin Cociș and Maria Junghietu.
The film was produced by Crișan through his company Rova Film in coproduction with Romania’s Mandragora, with the support of the Romanian Film Centre (CNC), the Salonta City Hall and local investors. The film premiered at the Moscow IFF on 2 October 2020, where it won the Russian Cinema Club Federation “Keen Eye” Award. Berliner also competed in the November 2020 edition of FilmFestival Cottbus and at the Trieste Film Festival 2021.
Berliner was domestically released by Rova Film and Iadasarecasa on 26 February 2021, when most of the cinemas were closed because of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Picture Tree International is handling the sales.
Crișan won the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival for Megatron in 2008 and the Special Jury Prize at the Locarno Film Festival for his debut feature Morgen (Mandragora) in 2010.
Production Information:
Producer:
Rova Film
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Coproducer:
Mandragora (Romania)
Credits:
Director: Marian Crișan
Scriptwriters: Marian Crișan, Gabriel Andronache
DoP: Oleg Mutu
Editor: Tudor Pojoni
Production design: Simona Pădurețu
Costume design: Sonia Constantinescu, Anca Miron
Sound design: Alexandru Dumitru
Make-up: Bianca Boeroiu
Cast: Ion Sapdaru, Ovidiu Crișan, Sorin Cociș, Maria Junghietu, Petre Ghimbasan, Eugen Țugulea, Ioana Chițu
