03/11/2014 - Rugină’s third feature will be shot next winter in Bucharest

In 2013, Iulia Rugină made a splash with Love Building [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Iulia Rugina
film profile], an independent, micro-budget romantic comedy that became Romania’s third most popular domestic release of that year. The director is currently preparing Another Love Building for a December release and is also now in development with the drama Breaking News [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Iulia Rugină
film profile], a Hai-Hui Entertainment production.

Producer Tudor Giurgiu plans to shoot the film over five weeks next winter, with a budget of €750,000; half of this amount is already secured. Hai-Hui is currently in negotiations with a French co-production partner, which has already submitted the project for a grant from the French CNC. Breaking News has received support from the Romanian National Film Center, the SEE Cinema Network and the MEDIA Programme.

The screenplay, written by Rugină together with Oana Răsuceanu and Ana Agopian, centres on Alex, a brilliant but arrogant TV reporter. A few days before Christmas, while he is covering an explosion at a factory, an accident injures him and kills his cameraman. It is the start of a profound transformation for Alex, who will find his life is changed forever by this tragic event. 

Breaking News was supposed to be Rugină’s debut feature. The project is famous for its dysfunctional relationship with the Romanian National Film Center: it won a grant as many as three times, but the first time, it lost the money after another project made an appeal and had its result recalculated; the second time, the Center disqualified the producer.

For Rugină, the delay seems to be a good omen, “as Breaking News is not easy to shoot, and it needs maturity and experience in directing”. After two other features, the director feels ready to tackle this character-driven drama, which is expected to be released in Romania in 2016.