Interview: Mihai Mincan – Milk Teeth (Dinți de lapte)

Fusing a country’s psychological rift and political shift alongside a truly complex character study that explores innocence loss, absence and community disillusionment, in Milk Teeth (Dinți de lapte) Romanian filmmaker Mihai Mincan poses the question of what is left behind for those who must carry the burden of another person’s spirit and memory. Set in the transitional seasons leading up to the downfall of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s dictatorship, this sophomore feature explores isolation within a decaying system — one that, paradoxically, compelled a generation to find the courage to speak out.

Among the new voices in Romanian cinema, Mincan returned to the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti section. In my sit-down with the filmmaker, we got to chat about working in a completely different realm as compared to his 2022 debut feature To the North, how he created his lead character (played by young actress Emma Ioana Mogoş) and how he wrote the film’s unique soundscape.