24/01/2017 - The family drama will be released domestically this year

Cristi Iftime has finished his first feature, Mariţa, a Hi Film Productions project in co-production with deFilm. Ada Solomon and Radu Stancu are the film’s producers. With a budget of approximately €300,000, Mariţa was developed with ScripTeast support. In October 2014, the project received around €88,000 from the Romanian National Film Center, and it also received support from the MEDIA programme.

Initially planned as a short film, Mariţa was developed into a feature by Iftime together with screenwriter Anca Buja. The story centres on Costi (Alexandru Potocean), a 30-year-old man who suddenly comes up with the idea of visiting his father, Sandu (Adrian Titieni), planning a surprise reunion with the rest of the family, whom Sandu has always neglected. The relationships within the family will be responsible for a series of surprises throughout the 100-minute film. Lucian Iftime, Lorena Zăbrăuţanu and Nicoleta Hancu also play important parts in Mariţa.

Luchian Ciobanu is the film’s DoP, and Dragoş Apetri was responsible for the editing. Mariţa was shot in January and February 2016, in Cluj-Napoca, Dej and on the outskirts of Vatra Dornei.

Iftime tells Cineuropa that he is attracted to characters "who react intuitively, going with the flow of life without much self-analysis. I think they have something both tonic and tragic. The father, the character played by Adrian Titieni, is such a person, and he is the main reason for making this film." Iftime also says that Mariţa revolves around a coming-of-age moment in the life of a son who must say goodbye to his father. "The challenge was to enable the audience to get to know the father so well that they, too, would feel the difficulty of this separation."

Mariţa will be released domestically this year by Micro Film.