Love Sick

Colour, 35 mm
Romania, 2006, 85 min
Section: East of the West - Films in Competition

Synopsis

A person’s first great love and first profound disappointment can assume various forms, but the pain which accompanies it tends to have the same intensity. And it doesn’t matter if the partners are of the same or opposite sex. Two girls meet at university in Bucharest, and after Alex rents a small room in the house where Kiki lives with her parents, they become inseparable. Alex is a diligent student and dutiful daughter to her simple parents from the village. Kiki covers up her emotional instability behind a mask of theatrical eccentricity. She also hides a strange family secret within her which sparks fits of jealousy towards her brother Sandu. When their friendship grows into love, the girls are faced with a difficult moral and emotional dilemma. Should they tell their families the truth, or continue to conceal their orientation?

About the director

Tudor Giurgiu (b. 1972, Cluj-Napoca, Romania) studied at the Film and Theatre Academy and then worked as an assistant to a series of eminent directors such as Lucian Pintilie and Radu Mihaileanu. In the years 1998–99 he worked for Atomic TV and became a well-known creator of pop videos and commercials. In 2000 he made the documentary Hausmeister, about the German community now living in Transylvania, which was awarded at various international film festivals. His short film Popcorn Story was selected for screening at the Berlin IFF in 2002. As a producer he shared in the making of The Great Communist Bank Robbery, which competed at the IDFA documentary film festival in 2004. He is the founder and president of the Transilvania International Film Festival and last year was appointed Managing Director of Romanian state television (TVR).