Romania's winning streak at festivals continues, but the most unusual and ambiguous one still lurks in mysterious darkness. The undeservedly underrated Gabriel de Achim challenged the widely renowned Cristi Puiu (“The Death of Mr. Lazarescu”) to make a film using all the things, which the established Romanian master most detests in cinema. He constructed a non-linear story with wickedly tangled flash backs and flash forwards and set the same actors to perform different and multi-faceted roles.

Director Teo desperately tries to escape from a painful personal loss to rehearsals for a new ambitious film. Step by step, sensitive experiments with fictionalised and real events, based on own experiences, sufferings, observations, uncover absurd coincidences and frightening conflicts.

Edvinas Pukšta