If you’re a distributor keen on foreign language fair, developing relationships with filmmakers is primordial in having an advantage on the competition: this is a tactic that IFC films regularly employs with foreign filmmakers (several come to mind as I write this). Despite receiving inadequate support for a foreign language nomination for the Oscars, the above mentioned relationship is one reason why IFC Films have been able to grab Cristian Mungiu and fellow Romanian filmmakers (Ioana Uricaru, Hanno Hofer, Razvan Marculescu and Constantin Popescu) latest project titled Tales From the Golden Age.
Unlike IFC folks, I’ll be seeing the Un Certain Regard selected film this Thursday, and if I haven’t declared often enough on the site – I’m a huge fan of Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (it received tons of accolades and last year’s Palme d’or). I got to interview Mungiu at TIFF.
Tales From The Golden Age is an unconventional personal history of the late communist period in Romania, told through its urban myths from the perspective of ordinary people. Comic, bizarre, surprising, these myths drew on the often surreal events of everyday life under the communist regime. Humor is what kept Romanians alive, and Tales From The Golden Age aims to re-capture that mood, portraying the survival of a nation having to face every day the twisted logic of a dictatorship.
IFC have tagged a 2010 release date – perhaps a January release like 4 months and a better campaign this time out incase there is a shot at Oscar.
