02/04/2008

Nae Caranfil was, in many ways, the only director brandishing the flag of hope for Romanian cinema in the 1990s. At 48, with four successful features behind him (Don’t Lean Out the Window, Asphalt Tango, Sweet Idleness and Philanthropy), Caranfil has finally released the film he had been dreaming about for the past 20 years. The Rest Is Silence [+see also:
trailer
film profile] tells the story of the making of the first Romanian feature, in a cinematic work that basically depicts the coming-of-age of the young artist. Much like Caranfil himself was in 1988, when he wrote the script.

Cineuropa: What is your relationship with producer Cristian Comeaga and how much does it resemble young director Grig’s story?
Nae Caranfil: At the time when this script came about, Cristian couldn’t even dream of becoming a film producer. The year was 1988, when producers were some nice comrades from the Ministry of Culture. What I have tried to show is the essential relationship between a producer and a director; that is, between the financer and the artist; that is, between money and art. It is a passionate relationship, involving both love and hatred and I think that this is what makes this film interesting.

Why do you think that, despite all of your efforts, the film didn’t have a remarkable festival career?
Festivals are a totally different thing. They are not public-oriented, they are niche audience-driven. Festivals have this strategy, of promoting films that don’t have precise public appeal. Be they good or bad, they must be difficult for the public to understand. Just like a public-driven film can be good or bad, so can an arthouse film. There is no such thing as an absolute hierarchy of the things that turn a film into “the art of cinema”. Chaplin’s big films are among the most user-friendly ever made, yet they are masterpieces of cinema.

I think that what’s happening now in the world of festivals is not good at all. We’re facing an “Iron Curtain” between what they call mainstream and the festival strategies. European and American cinema refuse to communicate with one another like they did in the 1970s, and this is why Hollywood films just keep getting sillier, while European films are getting harder and harder to watch.

Do you think the film will ultimately get international distribution?
International distributors are a totally different thing from actors, directors or producers. They invest their own money. They don’t get subsidies, they don’t invest other people’s money. This is why they’re scared of taking chances, they fear risk above all else and they like to sell the same successful movie over and over again. And The Rest is Silence is not a mediocre genre movie that could be easily marketed, so we are going to need a really brave and creative distributor. And I think we’ll find him, eventually.