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PRODUCTION / FUNDING Romania

Octavian Strunilă in late post-production with the Romanian remake of Perfect Strangers

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- With its Romanian remake, Paolo Genovese’s superhit cements its title as the most remade film ever

Octavian Strunilă in late post-production with the Romanian remake of Perfect Strangers

In 2019, Paolo Genovese’s superhit Perfect Strangers [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
entered the Guinness World Records as the film with the biggest number of remakes ever, with as many as 18 features being produced based on its screenplay. Starting this September, that number will rise to 19, as Romanian actor and director Octavian Strunilă is putting the finishing touches to the Romanian remake. The film is being staged by Strunilă's Ecart Concept together with Black Maria Film, Retina Film Production and Chainsaw Europe.

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The screenplay, adapted by Strunilă, follows the set-up of the original film: seven friends meet for dinner and start a dangerous game, as all their texts, emails and social media messages will be read out loud. Of course, the shared secrets will immediately threaten the peace of the group.

The film is one of the very few independent productions that get made in Romania each year, with other examples from this year being Ioachim Stroe’s Camping (read the news), Robert Popa’s The Dac Side of the Moon (read the news) and Rareş Abraham’s Friday the 3rd (read the news). The Romanian Perfect Strangers has a significantly bigger budget than these films, with circa €350,000 being spent on the production. The main characters are played by Anca Dumitra, Andreea Grămoşteanu, Ada Galeş, Alex Conovaru, Leonid Doni, Adrian Ştefan and Gabi Răuţă. The DoP is Zoran Simulov. The film was shot over 12 days in Bucharest.

Strunilă tells Cineuropa that his film may observe the set-up of the original film, but will also be very Romanian. “Our humour is different, as we have our own ways to love, to be jealous, we have our own brand of cowardice and curiosity regarding the lives of others. We express our frustrations and remorse in a different way and the same can be said about our indifference and how we solve a conflict. We may have Latin ancestry, but we are the only Orthodox Latins, and this is why the family culture has its own specifics here! We have one foot in Europe and the other in Old Russia. (…) We have so many feelings that are specific to us and this is the ‘ground zero’ I used in order to approximate the characters. My endeavour was to take a story that has been adapted so many times and make it live our way,” the director explains.

The film will be released in Romania at the end of September.

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