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PRODUCTION Romania

Dan Piţa in post-production with Kira Kiralina

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- Two decades after winning a Silver Lion, Piţa makes his comeback with a period drama

Dan Piţa in post-production with Kira Kiralina
Dan Piţa

One of the most famous Romanian directors during the communist era, Dan Piţa is making a comeback with his most recent feature, Kira Kiralina, an adaptation of a popular novella written in French by Romanian author Panaït Istrati. The film is being produced by Castel Film and has a budget of approximately €600,000.

The screenplay, written by Ioan Grigorescu together with Piţa, will follow the title characters, Kira (Iulia Dumitru) and Kiralina (Iulia Cîrstea), mother and daughter, who live in the city of Brăila at the turn of the 19th century. Famous for their beauty, both will have to sell their bodies in order to survive. The cast is completed by Corneliu UliciŞtefan IancuMircea Rusu and Silviu Debu. The producer is Vlad Păunescu, and Dan Alexandru is the DoP.

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According to the producers, the adaptation has an Oriental flavour, "bringing to the big screen the magical atmosphere of the Arabian Nights". This is a reason why the majority of the scenes were shot in the Castel Film Studios over almost a month in the autumn of 2012.

Piţa has become one of the most popular Romanian directors of his generation since his first features, many of them adaptations of classical novels. Outside Romania, he is most famous for Luxury Hotel, selected in 1992 in the official competition of the Venice International Film Festival. The film was awarded a Silver Lion, tying with Bigas Luna's Jamón, jamón and Claude Sautet's Un coeur en hiver.

Kira Kiralina will be released domestically by Castel Film on 5 September.

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