Blue Moon

Original title: Crai Nou
Genre: Drama
Director: Alina Grigore
Country: Romania
Year of production: 2021
Czas: 84 min

Awards and nominations:
2021 San Sebastián International Film Festival: Golden Seashell

A Romanian village surrounded by mountains. A family business consisting of a restaurant and a guesthouse for tourists. This is where a young girl Irina and her sister Viki live and work. Irina is a bookkeeper and Viki is a waitress, but they practically manage the whole resort. The business is run by men, cousins and brothers of the girls’ father who lives in London. Both daughters dream of leaving. Irina seeks to continue her studies in Bucharest and Viki would like to move in with her boyfriend. They want to live their lives, ditch the daily grind and free themselves from the dysfunctional and violent family with despotic, sexist and antisemitic men making all decisions. The feature debut by Alina Grigore, inspired by her own experiences, is not a typical New Wave film that we could expect from a Christi Puiu’s actress and an Adriana Sitaru’s screenwriter. In this story of family traumas, Grigore doesn’t create an analogy to the whole Romanian society, nor does she settle accounts with the legacy of the Communist regime. This tale of violence, focused on the protagonist’s emotions, is far from obvious. The roles of a female victim and a male tormentor are reversed, while accidentally initiated sex and Irina’s relationship with an older married artist unexpectedly strengthen her resolve to fight for her own freedom and independence. The film uncovers the weakness of patriarchal masculinity hiding under the obsessive and pathological mental and physical violence.

Author: Mariola Wiktor
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Alina Grigore – actress, director and screenwriter born in Bucharest in 1984. She launched her career at the age of 10. She appeared in television, theatre and radio before graduating from a drama school in 2007. Grigore acted in numerous Romanian TV shows, as well as films by Radu Potcoavy, Cristi Puiu and Adriana Sitaru. She also collaborated with various theatres. “Blue Moon” is her feature directorial debut.

2023-04-17

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2023-04-23

13:00