The jury of the festival will grant seven awards, plus another award offered by the International Film Critics Federation (FIPRESCI). The film winner of Prix EFA-Drama will be automatically entered into the selection of the European Film Academy Awards.
The Paternal Language will compete with shorts from countries such as France, Spain, Great Britain, Albania, Turkey andi China.
The film is presenting the struggle of a young woman to meet his father who abandoned her over 30 years ago. Under the impact of recent events of her life (the death of her mother and a divorce), she tries to get herself together for this meeting. The people she meets in a Romanian village at the crossroads between German, Hungarian and Romanian cultures, make Andreea get out of her comfort zone and go beyond her limits.
“Initially, I had my mind set on making a comedy: Andreea goes to meet the father who abandoned her when she was a child, but while she is on her way she receives from him a text in Hungarian, his maternal language and her paternal language respectively, which she does not speak. After an in-depth study of the subject, things migrated towards drama on their own, the issue seeming more appropriate to present the huge emptiness hiding inside a person who actually lives with something like this – being rejected by their own father,” the director stated.
Cristina Juks plays the leading role in the film, and the cast also includes actors with the National Theatre of Târgu Mureș: Berekmėri Katalin and Korpos Andrȧs, but also Lucica Titirișcă, Alexandru Stătescu, Alexandru Constantin, Andrei Rotaru and Avram Icloza.
The script and the directing of the film are signed by Cristina Juks. Pătru Păunescu if DoP, the editing was made by Theodora Penciu, and Sabina Veșteman and Bianca Veșteman were the costume designers. The original score was composed by Cari Tibor.
The Paternal Language is a production of Reber Management & Services, being distributed by Ultra Violet Media.