The Child's Position in pre-production

by Stefan Dobroiu

27/01/2012 - Peter Calin Netzer's third feature The Child's Position, a psychological drama about a mother and her "almost pathological" relationship with her son, will start shooting at the end of February. The shoot is expected to take five weeks in Bucharest and around the capital.

The script is written by Netzer (pictured) together with screenwriter-director Razvan Radulescu, one of the most important screenwriters of the so-called Romanian New Wave. He is responsible for The Death of Mr Lazarescu [trailer], The Paper Will Be Blue, Boogie [trailer, film focus], First of all, Felicia [trailer, film focus] and Principles of Life [trailer, film focus], among others. The main actors are Luminita Gheorghiu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) and Bogdan Dumitrache (Best Intentions), with smaller parts going to popular actors such as Vlad Ivanov (4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days [trailer, film focus]), Natasa Raab (Best Intentions) and Mimi Branescu (Tuesday, After Christmas [trailer, film focus]).

The Child's Position is the first feature produced by Parada Film, better known as a local distributor. The budget amounts to €700,000. The project received a grant of €250,000 from the Romanian Film Center in 2011 and it is one of the very few local films produced with no help from foreign co-producers. The film is not expected to be domestically released before the beginning of 2013, Netzer told Cineuropa.

The director's previous two films are Maria, released in 2003, which won an acting award in Locarno, and Medal of Honor [trailer] from 2009. The Romania-Germany co-production about an old man (Victor Rebengiuc) who tries to improve his relationship with his wife and son after accidentally receiving a WWII medal of honor won five awards at the Thessaloniki film festival in 2009 and two Gopo Awards (Best Script - Tudor Voican and Best Actor - Victor Rebengiuc) in March 2011.