After directing several short films, and co-writing Mammalia [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film] with Sebastian Mihăilescu and Man and Dog [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Ştefan Constantinescu
fiche film] with Ştefan Constantinescu, Romanian director Andrei Epure makes his directorial debut with Don’t Let Me Die, which will be shown in the Cineasti del Presente competition of the 78th Locarno Film Festival (6-16 August – see the news). The film was produced by Ana Gheorghe and Alex Teodorescu through Saga Film, and co-produced by Handplayed (Bulgaria), Tomsa Films (France) and Romanian outfits Arrogant Films and Conceptual Lab by Theo Nissim.

The screenplay, written by Gheorghe and Epure, follows Maria (Cosmina Stratan), a young woman who wanders through a seaside town preparing the funeral of her mysterious neighbour, Isabela (Elina Löwensohn). Maria will have several encounters that turn the story into “a meditation on loneliness and mourning”, according to the filmmakers.

The budget amounts to €1.2 million, with a little more than €100,000 coming from the Romanian National Film Center. The project also received support from the Bulgarian National Film Center and the French CNC. Don’t Let Me Die was shot over 26 days in several towns by the Romanian seaside and in Bucharest. Laurenţiu Răducanu is the DoP, and supporting characters are played by Silviu Debu, Ozana Oancea, George Albert Costea, Mihaela Sîrbu, Elias Ferkin and Isabela Neamțu.

On the film’s challenges, producer Ana Gheorghe tells Cineuropa: “I think filmmaking is always difficult, but a first feature is especially hard to make. People are quite sceptical, and you only have a CV to convince them to invest their trust and money in you, which they don't do easily. It's especially difficult if you're proposing a movie that's stranger in form, story and style, a film that refuses to accommodate festival trends or the narrative structures favoured by screenwriting workshops. Don't Let Me Die is a very special movie, and I'm glad we still found the partners and the resources to make it exactly the way we wanted to make it, with absolutely no compromise.”

As for the director, he says in a press release that his main purpose was to “make a movie about the relationship we have with death, in all its bureaucratic, terrifying and sometimes comical aspects. I wanted it to be a kind of obituary in images, incomplete, but as palpable as possible, archiving the passage through life of someone who has left few traces behind.”

Don’t Let Me Die is being handled internationally by Lights On (Italy). Independenţa Film will release the film domestically later this year.