![]() ![]() “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World” is produced by Ada Solomon of MicroFilm and Adrian Sitaru of 4 Proof Film and co-produced by Paul Thiltges Distributions, Les Films D’ici, Kinorama and MicroFilm. When she’s not navigating the slow crawl of Bucharest traffic and trying to survive another punishing workday, she signs onto social media with her digital alter-ego to spew profanity-laced, Andrew Tate-style tirades against women - a coarse, provocative, irreverent performance that sets the tone for Jude’s offbeat exploration of where cinema, technology and capitalism collide. In characteristic fashion, however, the director approaches those potentially imposing themes in his idiosyncratic way, introducing the audience to Angela (Manolache), a no-nonsense, chain-smoking blonde who drives in a sequined mini-dress while brushing off the chauvinistic insults lobbed at her by angry motorists. “These stories of exploitation, of over-working people, of class relations, stayed with me.” It has to do with capitalism, but it has to do more with the form this capitalism has in Romania,” Jude said. He died in a car accident after falling asleep at the wheel. It was during that period that he often witnessed the punishing lengths to which film crews are pushed, recalling recently the story of a technician whose complaints of exhaustion were ignored by his production manager. Like many of his Romanian contemporaries, the director - who won the Golden Bear at last year’s Berlinale for his irreverent satire “ Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” and a Silver Bear in 2015 for his Romanian Western “Aferim!” - cut his teeth as an AD working on foreign films shooting in the Eastern European nation. The result is a withering portrait of late-stage capitalism that’s no less sparing in its critiques of digital technology, nor of a movie industry whose heights the veteran filmmaker Jude has scaled. In the film’s second half, one of her interviewees, played by Ovidiu Pîrșan, is forced to reinvent his story to suit the company’s narrative. Produced by Alex Teodorescu of Bucharest-based Sagafilm, “Eight Postcards From Utopia” echoes many of the themes that run through Jude’s latest feature, “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World” (pictured), an absurdist dramatic comedy about work, exploitation, death and the new gig economy.ĭivided into two parts, the film follows an overworked and underpaid production assistant (Ilinca Manolache) who must drive around Bucharest to film the casting for a workplace safety video commissioned by a multinational company. “You can see in them all these tendencies regarding a market economy, capitalism, desires, the fetishism of the merchandise - sometimes in really ludicrous ways, sometimes absurd, sometimes dirty.” They become after some years, in a paradoxical way, very important documents,” the director said. ![]() “These kinds of images offer the most fictionalized version of life, or society. The experimental film portrays how a country newly emerged from the deprivations of the socialist economy was suddenly, jarringly introduced to contemporary consumer culture, using ads that, through a variety of styles selling a range of products, depict a coherent fantasy world of fulfilled desires. “The use of images, the way they are made, the way they are used.” ![]() The documentary, which will be completed by the end of the year, is a continuation of a “preoccupation of mine about how images are constructed in the world,” Jude told Variety. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |