Romanian filmmaker Cosmin Nicolae’s “Pyrrhic,” a feature debut about an army veteran sent into a downward spiral after returning home from Afghanistan, took home the top prize Friday at the Transilvania Pitch Stop, the co-production forum of the Transilvania Film Festival. The Chainsaw Europe Post-Production Award comes with €25,000 ($27,400) in post-production services for the winning project.
Nicolae’s war drama follows a veteran returning to her hometown on the Black Sea coast, where a harrowing discovery jeopardizes the process of coming to terms with her traumas and with a drifting society. The film is produced by Velvet Moraru of Bucharest-based Icon Production.
“It’s a very character-driven, observational drama. It’s inspired by a host of characters that I’ve been researching — it’s real people and real experiences,” Nicolae told Variety after the award ceremony. “I’m interested in marginalized characters and liminal spaces, and the way people reflect their surroundings and vice versa.”
The film will reflect the experiences of immigrants from Southeast Asia, who make up a large part of the Romanian workforce but “remain invisible” to the broader society, as well as those of veterans returning from combat zones “carrying all sorts of visible and invisible wounds,” said Nicolae.
“Researching their experience, many people abroad had no idea that Romania has soldiers in peacekeeper missions abroad, so it was important for us to take these stories and make them a little bit more visible,” he added. “Pyrrhic” was also the winner of the CoCo Award for a Romanian or Moldovan project in development, which includes a five-day residency offered by the Connecting Cottbus Co-Production Market.
Among the other awards handed out Friday in Cluj, the TPS Development Award in the amount of €5,000 ($5,500) from Romanian production and post-production house Avanpost went to “The Life We Never Had,” Bulgarian filmmaker Martin Markov’s exploration of the fallout when a failed painter pursues an unnatural obsession. The film is produced by Victoria Mitreva and Vanya Rainova for Portokal.
The UPFAR-ARGOA Award in the amount of €3,000 ($3,300) went to “Second Line,” from Ukrainian director-producer Olga Stuga. Unfolding after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, the film follows the filmmaker’s family as they scatter across Europe, forcing them to make impossible choices between a safe life and their duty before both society and themselves.
The award from Moldova’s National Center of Cinematography in the amount of €1,500 ($1,750) went to “Little Death,” the feature directorial debut of Greece’s Efthimis Kosemund-Sanidis, which tells the story of a debt-ridden young man who sets out to claim his inheritance from his long-estranged father. The film is produced by Greece’s Yorgos Tsourgiannis for Horsefly Films and Romania’s Anamaria Antoci for Tangaj Production.
The Villa Kult Development Award in the amount of €500 ($750) went to “The Circle,” from Moldova’s Vareriu Andriuta, which follows a young detective sent to a remote village to investigate a mysterious death. The film is produced by Iulia Andriuta of Amprenta Films.
Lastly, the Drama Room — the dedicated TV strand of the Transilvania festival’s industry arm — handed out an award for the first time for the best series project to take part in this year’s edition. The award, which includes a pilot development deal with Romanian broadcaster PRO TV, went to “The Kids Are Alright,” a coming-of-age drama from Bucharest-based scriptwriter and director Serghei Chiviriga. The show tells the story of a reckless foreign student who’s sent home from boarding school, forcing his roommates down a dangerous path when they have to decide what to do with his hidden stash of weed and who to trust.
The Transilvania Film Festival runs June 9 – 18.
Pictured: Romanian director Cosmin Nicolae (left) and producer Ioana Moraru.
