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Kieslowski Inspired: Romania’s ‘Different Mothers’
Different Mothers is based on a true story that happened to polish movie director Krzysztof Kieslowski during the filming Dworzec (Station). Kieslowski and his small team were filming in a railway station during the night for a documentary when the police came and asked them for their footage to see if it can be used as evidence in a criminal case. What Kieslowski filmed couldn’t help the police at all. But the Polish director started to think a lot about “What if… the police found something useful? What if… I had moved the camera a little to the left and not to the right?” Somehow, this incident resulted in Kieslowski abandoning documentary filmmaking altogether.
In 2010, filmmakers Mihai Ionescu and Tiberiu Iordan will have completed their first feature film. In June, at Moscow Film Festival, their movie – Different Mothers (Despre alte mame) – received the Award of the International Film Club’s Federation. This Friday, the film will be released domestically in Romania.
Different Mothers is based on a true story that happened to polish movie director Krzysztof Kieslowski during the filming Dworzec (Station). Kieslowski and his small team were filming in a railway station during the night for a documentary when the police came and asked them for their footage to see if it can be used as evidence in a criminal case. What Kieslowski filmed couldn’t help the police at all. But the Polish director started to think a lot about “What if… the police found something useful? What if… I had moved the camera a little to the left and not to the right?” Somehow, this incident resulted in Kieslowski abandoning documentary filmmaking altogether.
The question “What if…” has been also the starting point for our film. And the answer can be found at the end of the movie. With positive results for some people and… some other results for others – declared Mihai Ionescu.
This tells the story of five young film crew members that come an early morning to a railway station to shoot a documentary about the throbbing life in this knot of human destinies. From the very beginning, they have to spend a whole day in this space, and the location influences them in unexpected ways. All the breaks and the shooting arrangements become confession-like moments, in which each member of the crew reveals a special trace of the mother-son relationship, life, professional and personality truths. At a certain point of the shooting day these fragments of the emotional biography transform each member, essentially fusing them together as one spirit.
Around midnight, on a platform, they are waiting for a train to take a last shot. Their waiting is interrupted by two policemen who ask the crew to follow them to the Railway Police Station. The police demand to watch all the previously shot material, which reveals a very difficult to imagine life situation that would have remained unnoticed by our movie makers.
The cast includes Silviu Geamănu, Gavril Pătru, Marius Cordoş, Mihai Baranga and Robert Radoveneanu.
For Marius Cordoş, Mihai Baranga and Robert Radoveneanu, Different Mothers represents their feature film debut. Silviu Geamănu played before in Nae Caranfil’s E pericoloso sporgersi, Philantrophy and The Rest is Silence. Gavril Pătru worked with Lucian Pintilie on Prea târziu (Too Late), Alexei Cabulov on Siberia and Nae Caranfil on Asfalt Tango, Philantrophy and The Rest is Silence.
