02/11/2018 - The feature shows the relationship between an elderly policeman and a teenager

Two years after he released his previous feature, By the Rails [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cătălin Mitulescu
film profile], Romanian director Cătălin Mitulescu (The Way I Spent the End of the World [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Loverboy [+see also:
trailer
interview: Ada Condeescu
film profile]) is approaching the end of post-production for his new movie, Heidi [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cătălin Mitulescu
film profile]. Mitulescu is also the film’s sole producer, staging it through Strada Film.

The screenplay, written by Mitulescu and Radu Aldulescu, focuses on Mihai Visoiu (Gheorghe Visu in a new role as a lawman after he revived his career with Bogdan Mirică’s Dogs [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bogdan Mirica
film profile]), a policeman verging on retirement who is given a mission to find a girl willing to testify in an organised-crime case involving human trafficking. Visoiu finds Heidi (Cătălina Mihai) easily enough, but the true adventure starts when the policeman has to convince her that she should collaborate with the police. 

The film’s budget amounts to approximately €940,000. The Romanian National Film Center supported the project with almost €455,000. Production started in February in Bucharest, and the project is now about to wrap post-production. Marius Panduru is the film’s DoP, and other important parts are played by Florin Zamfirescu, Bogdan Dumitrache, Alex Conovaru and Octav Costin. 

Cătălin Mitulescu tells Cineuropa that his main interest in the story was showing how the male protagonist develops fatherly feelings for Heidi and how, in a moment of vulnerability, he tries to do the right thing, although he has no power to truly help this girl who escaped from a family of gangsters.

Heidi will be released domestically in 2019. For now, there is no Romanian distributor attached.