The Moldavian director returns to comedy with a film on how absurd and sarcastic life can be and how to treat all hurdles with optimism.
Eastern Business tells the story between two Moldavian men, Marian (Constantin Pușcașu), a provincial intellectual, and Petro (
Ion Sapdaru), an opportunist full of ideas. The two embark on a crazy journey in search of the money they need to fulfil their dreams: Marian wants to marry Veronica (Anne Marie Chertic), while Petro wants to have a crane in order to lease it. They decide to become business partners and start to work on a plan: to sell a train wagon full of horseshoes. Their plans get mixed up, but, nevertheless, Marian and Petro don't lose their optimism and try other methods to get rich.
The feature report made by AaRC on location on the shooting sets of
Eastern Business may be
viewed on site, as well as an
interview with Igor Cobileanski, taken after the film's preview screening
at TIFF 2016.
Igor Cobileanski has always felt close to comedy: “That's how I really started.
Eastern Business is a tragi-comedy and comes as a sequel to the shorts I made a while ago and which were very successful:
When the Light Goes Out, Sașa, Grișa and Ion,
(Plictis) şi inspiraţie/Inspiration. I have always loved those shorts. “
Produced by Alien Film in co-production with Lithuania and the Republic of Moldova, this
road movie was shot last summer in Romania during 25 days. The stifling heat helped the Lithuanian director of cinematography Feliksas Abrukauskas to create the arid atmosphere the director wanted: „the heat we worked in manage to go beyond the camera and thus we obtained the absurd optimism dimension, the source of the comedy in the film”. The scenography (Vali Ighigheanu) and costumes (Maria Pitea) completed the director's vision on the film's positioning in the Balkan space: “We can easily say that the things took place today or maybe 25 years ago.”
The casting was a complex process, an adventure in itself for finding the most suited actors for the roles, who could also speak with a Bessarabia accent. Cobileanski's ambition was to discover in the theatres from both sides of the Prut the most gifted actors, with or without film experience, but able to create suck language humour. Ion Sapdaru is known for his roles in
California Dreamin’ (nesfârşit)/California Dreaming' (endless),
A fost sau n-a fost?/12:08 East of Bucharest,
S-a furat mireasa/The Bride was Stolen or
După dealuri/Beyond the Hills, while Constantin Pușcașu played more in foreign films shot in our country, such as
Warewolf: The Beast Among Us; the two protagonists work together at the National Theatre of Iași.
Eastern Affair had its preview screening in June at Transylvania IFF of Cluj, were it was very warmly received. In October, the series of events will start with an important regional premiere in Iași on 17 October, and will continue with a gala tour in Botoșani, Suceava, Piatra Neamț, Bacău, Vaslui, Galați, Brăila, Buzău, Constanța, Brașov, Cluj, Oradea, Arad, Timișoara, Deva, Tg. Jiu, Craiova, Pitești, Sibiu and Ploiești. On this occasion, Cobileanski wants to prove that “although every area laughs in its own way, it is my challenge that the humour in Eastern Affair be universal”.
Details on:
Facebook //
Alienfilm.ro
