02/06/2016 - Dozens of new projects will share €6.8 million

The Romanian National Film Center has announced the winners of the first session of its annual production support competition, with as much as €6.8 million going to new projects. Almost €4 million went to 15 fiction features, €1 million to three feature debuts, €340,000 to 12 short-film projects, €674,000 to seven documentaries, another €674,000 to seven animations and €67,000 to 12 screenplays in development.

After several sessions where first-feature projects received as little as €40,000, the biggest amount of production support, of circa €656,000, goes to Ioana Uricaru’s Lemonade [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ioana Uricaru
film profile], produced by Cristian Mungiu’s Mobra Films. The other two first-feature projects supported by the Center are Reversible, produced by Parada Film and directed by Kenneth Mercken (€275,000), and Below Sea Level, produced by Hi Film and directed by Ştefan Constantinescu (€70,000).

Radu Jude’s new feature, You Were Born for This (Hi Film), was considered the best project in the feature competition, receiving €526,000, but the biggest production support in this section, €644,000, went to Corneliu Porumboiu’s Gomera. Florin Şerban will receive €376,000 for Love 1: Dog [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Florin Şerban
film profile] (Fantascope), while Marian Crişan and Mandragora can count on €273,000 for Berliner. Radu Muntean and Alice T [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Radu Muntean
film profile] received €388,000. Projects by Bogdan Apetri, Alberto Morais, Stere Gulea, Alberto Fasulo, Corneliu Gheorghiţă, Joseph Demian, Cristina Iacob, Andrei Gruzsniczki, Tudor Cristian Jurgiu and Sinişa Dragin shared the rest of the amount. 

The documentary Petrila Planet by Andrei Dăscălescu, the animation The Island by Anca Damian and the short film In the Shadow of Men by Andrei Creţulescu received the biggest chunks of financial support in their respective sections.