Just days after he premiered his documentary Infinite Football [+lee también:
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ficha de la película]. The film is being produced by Porumboiu’s 42 Km Film in co-production with Les Films du Worso (France) and Komplizen Film (Germany). 

Porumboiu wrote the screenplay, which follows policeman Cristi (Vlad Ivanov), who arrives on La Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, to learn El Silbo, a whistling form of communication. Cristi’s mission is to find information that could potentially lead to the release of a controversial businessman currently imprisoned in a Romanian jail. Other important parts are played by Catrinel Menghia, Rodica Lazăr and Sabin Tambrea. Tudor Mircea is the film’s DoP. 

Production started on 18 February and is expected to wrap at the end of April. The main shooting locations are Bucharest and the Spanish island of La Gomera. The film received financial support from the Romanian National Film Center and Eurimages. 

“A few years ago, I watched a documentary about El Silbo. This fascinating language, now almost extinct and used on the island of La Gomera, inspired and motivated me to write this story,” says Porumboiu in a press release, also stating that his film focuses on “a possible use of this ancestral language in a world in which communication has become more controlled, with a direct conflict between the verbal and the non-verbal”.

Gomera will be released in Romania in 2019. MK2, Porumboiu’s traditional sales partner, has the international rights.