Rebeca, a young Roma girl, is waiting for her father’s release from jail. She’s discovering she might have another future – as an artist – but she’s terrified of leaving the foster care centre. We talked to Romanian actress and director Alina Şerban about her Venice Venezia Spotlight entry I Matter.

Cineuropa: It feels like such a personal story – and that you really know this girl.
Alina Şerban: It’s a very personal story, but it’s also inspired by all of the research I’ve done for the last five years. I’ve made documentaries about young people in similar circumstances and a short that was also called I Matter, where I played Rebeca. After focusing on other people’s experiences, I came back to mine.

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What’s surprising is that it’s still such a joyful film. You even give her some musical moments.
I wanted to bring light into this world, even when it comes from pain. I see it in the young people I work with, and I saw it in my life. When it comes to identity, I don’t describe myself just as a Roma person; I have multiple identities, and yes, sometimes they collide. We cry, we dance, and all of these things are okay. I wanted to tell them: “You will manage.” It started with this idea that children come into this world with their own piece of bread. It might sound religious, but it was just a calming thought that there’s a place for everyone.

The title is an empowering statement. We all get to a point where we have to say: “I matter.”
In the short film, there is an animated sequence when the main character writes in her journal: “I don’t matter to anyone.” This is how I came up with it, from dark nights of loneliness and a longing to have what other people don’t even question. In a way, I’m ahead of my time. For the last 17 years, I’ve been putting out stories about us, from a Roma perspective, without exoticising us. But the world still needs to catch up with me. If there were 50 films showing the humanity of Roma people and their complexity, maybe I could have chosen another title. But I bear the responsibility, and have the honour, of being the first.

Rebeca also feels responsible, right? For her dad, her friends…
It’s a huge step to leave that place, and to be honest with you, I didn’t have the courage to do it myself. Life pushed me to finally leave the system – I went to New York to study. New York was my first home after the children’s home, and I needed multiple scholarships to be able to afford that. I would have been terrified to do what she does.

I couldn’t put a song I liked at the end of the film. You only hear the instrumental version. Why? Because people judge me. If it was just about me, Alina Šerban, I wouldn’t care. The issue is that I represent millions. I always have to think about the consequences of what I do. I will give you an example. We had an amazing red-carpet moment at Venice. They loved us, especially the kids, so they asked us to appear again at the end. One girl played a song, and we all had fun. But we were being filmed, and I knew people would judge this moment. It’s happening right now. Look – I’m not going to waste my energy on racism. My aim is to claim the space. Or, rather, to create it because it doesn’t exist yet.

You also talk about discovering creativity and realising it can be your way out. There are moments here that feel very Flashdance or Fame.
Or Billy Elliot, which is also about someone who doesn’t fit in and ends up in an “elite” place. I spent my childhood and teenage years in a traditional Roma yard with the family of my father. This was before the children’s home. I lived in dire poverty, in a house made of manure. But I was going to school because my parents believed in education.

I was living this double life of pretending I was just like the others. In that hut, I was watching Hallmark movies, and they were giving me this idea that I could become somebody. One that really stuck with me was called Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story. These films made me dream. I didn’t have hot water at home, but I could imagine a perfect Saturday: I would sit on the couch, wash my hair and my mum would bring me smoked cheese [laughs]. In my mind, I already had these things.

Still, even as a filmmaker, I didn’t expect anyone to believe in me. I produced or co-produced my own work – also I Matter. As an actress, I would love to have more experiences like with Hüseyin Tabak on Gipsy Queen or Goran Stolevski on Housekeeping for Beginners. I can keep on trying and pushing, but I’m still looking for that liberty – of finding yourself without others already defining who you are.

Making this film after Emir Kusturica and so many others exoticised us for years… It wasn’t easy. To go into these rooms where you are the only Roma woman, it wasn’t easy. It was so hard to arrive where I am now. But I wouldn’t give up my freedom.