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PRODUCTION France

Birol Unel and Asia Argento with Tony Gatlif

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Returning to Rumania after nine years when he made Gadjo Dilo, Tony Gatlif will turn over on Saturday for his 15th feature, Transylvania. On the back of the directing prize won at the Cannes Festival 2004 with Exiles, the filmmaker brings together a top European cast with the Italian Asia Argento, Turkish-German Birol Unel (best actor at the European Film Awards 2004 for Head-On [+see also:
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]
) and the French-Irish-Iranian Amira Casar (To paint or to make love [+see also:
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interview: Arnaud & Jean-Marie Larrieu
interview: Philippe Martin
film profile
]
), a trio for this road movie whose filming will end in January after shooting in the Rumanian towns of Rosia Montana, Sighet, Sighisoara and Dahia.

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"Since shooting Gadjo Dilo in 1996 en Rumania" explained Tony Gatlif, "I had in mind to make a film about an abandoned woman who finds herself lost at the end of the world with the barriers of language and culture. A woman who changes identity". Transylvania retraces the misadventures of Zingarina (Asia Argento), a passionate and rebellious woman who heads for Transylvania with her friend Marie (Amira Casar) in the hope of finding the man she loves. But this hope is short-lived in the drunkenness and madness of the huge peasant festival celebrating Herod. Despite her original intentions, Zingarina separates herself from her past and the vampire-like Marie, and hooks up with the enigmatic Tchangalo (Birol Unel), a man with no attachments.
Produced by the director’s company, Princes Films, with a budget between 3 and 4 millions euros, Transylvania will be distributed in France in the second semester of 2006 by Pyramide, also in charge of international sales, which should start with the French cinema Rendez-vous organised by Unifrance in Paris at the end of January.

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(Translated from French)

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