A time capsule of New York City between 13 and 15 August 1965, framed by the Beatles’ arrival in the city and their first concert at Shea Stadium, the film consists exclusively of archive material from the period (ABC, CBS, NBC, etc), 8mm home movies and images of the concert. Two teenagers, based on writer Geoffrey O’Brien and Beatles-fan Judith Kristen, are sent on a trip through time and inserted in the archive material through animation made by French artist Yann Kebbi.

If for Geoffrey O’Brien TWST is a „journey to the hidden core of a world both gone and palpably present”, Andrei Ujică reveals in a statement that this project, on which he started working in 2012, has deep and personal roots.

„Among my high school dreams, though, some were also more accessible: to get to work with a great pop band and to make an American movie. But even so, only 50 years later I dared to make a film around the first concert of the greatest band of all time on Shea Stadium. As I said to the young New York actors, whose voices were recorded for the film: 'It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to fulfil your dream, as long as you do it before you forget it,' ” said Andrei Ujică in a statement.

The script written by Ujică includes biographical information from Judith Kristen’s diary, excerpts from an autofiction by Geoffrey O'Brien, as well as from Ujică’s short story Isabela, the Friend of the Butterflies, published in Romanian in 1972, nine years before Ujică emigrated to Germany.

TWST / Things We Said Today is produced by Ronald Chammah through France’s Les Films du Camélia, Andrei Ujică through Modern Electric Pictures and Anamaria Antoci through Romania’s Tangaj Production in coproduction with ARTE France Cinéma and INA: Institut national de l’audiovisuel, and with support from Eurimages, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, HfG / ZKM Filminstitut, Arte France, UPFAR-ARGOA, SACEM and Romania’s Avanpost. Nouredine Essadi and Anda Ionescu are the executive producers.

The budget of the film was over 1 m EUR, Anamaria Antoci told FNE.

„The film is almost entirely composed of archival footage from the era (ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.), but it also required a few days of shooting in order to re-create some of the missing images. The characters appear in the film as semi-animated drawings, which required extensive work and involvement from an artistic and visual effects team that worked closely with Andrei Ujică for several months. Another important part of the project was casting and recording the voices of the American actors that give life to our protagonists, which resulted in a great collaboration with the casting director Jodi Angstreich and Hyperbolic Studios in New York”, Anamaria Antoci told FNE.

No sales agent is attached to the project yet. Bad Unicorn will release the film in Romanian cinemas at the beginning of 2025.

Ujică’s previous project, The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu / Autobiografia lui Nicolae Ceaușescu, produced by Icon Production, premiered in Cannes’s Official Selection – Out of Competition in 2010.

Production Information:

Producers:
Les Films du Camélia (France)
Modern Electric Pictures (Romania)
Tangaj Production (Romania)
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Coproducers:
ARTE France Cinéma (France)
INA: Institut national de l’audiovisuel (France)

Credits:
Director: Andrei Ujică
Screenwriter: Andrei Ujică
Editor: Dana Bunescu
Sound designer: Dana Bunescu
Visual effects supervisor: Olga Avramov
Animation artist: Yann Kebbi
Voices: Tommy McCabe, ThereseAzzara, Shea Grant, Sarah McCluskey