Romanian film Breaking News directed by Iulia Rugină was screened today within the Competition. It tells a story of television reporter Alex, who is assigned a difficult task: to make a commemorative document about his colleague, who died in a car accident in which Alex survived. On this occasion, Alex meets the colleague’s daughter.
The audience can observe two different approaches by the main characters to accepting grief and facing the traumatic event. “While Alex, as a journalist, first had to build barriers to be able to realistically narrate the presented topic and only gradually breaks out of anonymity to immerse in sorrow, the colleague’s daughter is slowly coming to terms with her father’s tragic death. This contrast is indeed the main idea of the film” director Rugină explains.
The film also points out the current media’s tendency to turn human stories into tabloid news; nonetheless, it was the human aspect, rather than professional aspect, that was important for the director. “We wanted to refrain from any assessment or criticism of journalism. I myself did not know much about the profession and had to learn a lot, for example through asking the journalists. However, we were more interested in the relations between people from the viewpoints of the various characters, and also in parenthood, but we always tried to avoid over-dramatizing or sentimentality.”
The press conference turned into a general discussion on the issue of lacking interest of domestic audience in Romanian award-winning films. “Nobody trusts our films. Where you go to cinema to see a Romanian film, they will ask you at the ticket office whether you know the film was made in Romania and whether you really want to see it. Paradoxically, people do not like award-winning films or the Romanian new wave. We need a greater variety of genres, for example more comedies, to be able to compete with American movies,” producer Tudor Giurgiu suggested a possible means to attract people to cinemas.
