Synopsis

Until something else than death do us part

The director Andrei Gruzsniczki’s debut, „The Other Irene”, is grafted, like other Romanian films also, on the fervent topic of work migration. A Romanian film that owes its success, beyond its narrative and compositional qualities, to an exceptional cast, too.

The Other Irene by Andrei Gruzsniczki - CINEPUB

Director: Andrei Gruzsniczki
Scriptwriter: Ileana Muntean, Mircea Stăiculescu, Andrei Gruzsniczki
Cast: Andi Vasluianu, Simona Popescu, Dana Dogaru, Doru Ana, Gabriel Spahiu, Mihaela Sîrbu, Vlad Ivanov
Produced by: Vivi Drăgan Vasile
Cinematography by: Vivi Drăgan Vasile
Film editing by: Dana Bunescu
Year: 2009
Category: feature film
Genre: drama
Duration: 90 minutes
Subtitles: english
Territories: The film is not available in: Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, England, Saudi Arabia.

439,727 – Cinepub viewers

PLOT SUMMARY

“The Other Irene” is a woman that Aurel discovers little by little, when it’s already too late, as she returns from abroad in a sealed lead coffin. She previously had left to work for a better future, a future that wouldn’t include Aurel.

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„The Other Irene” is a Romanian film carefully anchored in the Post communist Romanian life of large scale poverty, thus the camera focus is on the day to day life of a young couple leading a scarce existence interrupted by the wife leaving to Cairo for work with the unshaken trust that this might be the couple’s chance to lead a better life. Her return is brutal: the girl comes back in a zinc casket, a suicide being the main suspicion.

Further on, the movie doesn’t aim to solve the mystery of the young woman’s death, but a deeper and more humane mystery: that of the drama that Aurel, the husband, lives, when, following personal investigations, he is revealed a different Irene than the one he used to know. This revelation alienates him from what he thought to be his existence of a married man with a loving wife. The movie is one of those Romanian films in which „realism” is the aesthetics used, but not the main purpose.

The film being selected in the Cinepub Romanian films online collection makes it possible for a greater number of viewers to enjoy it.

Reviews:

The Other Irine would deserve a greater number of viewers. It is not a film driven by a strong aesthetic or philosophical-moral parti-pris like the movies of Puiu or Porumboiu: it is not an author’s film. It is driven only by the desire to say, in an intelligent manner, a story with somewhat of a humane truth in it, which I believe it is just as honorable.” (Andrei Gorzo – www.agenda.liternet.ro )

„A slice of life, cut in a manner of a harsh realism, a fact that, unlike the classical short story of Anton Holban, A death that doesn’t prove anything, proves so much and about so many things that even the main character is afraid to look at himself in its terrifying mirror.” (Andreea Chiriac Hentea – www.agenda.liternet.ro )

Lines

„We met at the right time.”

„Aurel, I’ll be sorry for the rest of my life if I don’t go.”

„Why are you to thin? You are so lean.”

„We have to know what happened. We can’t leave things like this.”

„What happened is that she found you to suck the life out of her, that’s what happened.”

„Where’s Irina? Where’s Irina, mister?”

„She was my sister, but she didn’t love you anymore.”

Awards

  • 3rd Prize at Bergamo Film Meeting – Bergamo, Italy, 2009
  •  Best Romanian Feature Film Award, Transilvania International Film Festival, Cluj-Napoca – Romania, 2009
  •  Anonimul Trophy, Anonimul Independent Film Festival, Sfantu Gheorghe – Romania, 2009
  •  Proxima& FIPRESCI Award, CinePécs Film Festival, Budapest – Hungary, 2009
  •  Best Director Award, Arras International Film Festival – France, 2009
  •  Special Jury Award, UCIN, Bucharest – Romania, 2009
  •  Best Actor Award, UCIN, Bucharest – Romania, 2009
  •  Best Actor Award, Festival International du Film d’Amour, Mons, Belgium, 2010
  •  Best Debut Film, SEEFF (South-East European Film Festival), Los Angeles – USA, 2010

Media Articles

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