A picture-perfect wedding goes horribly awry when the groom’s mistress crashes the festivities, sending the bride-to-be into a tailspin — and toward her ultimate redemption — in “3 Days in September,” the latest from veteran Romanian director and producer Tudor Giurgiu (“Freedom”).
The film, which opens the 25th Transilvania Intl. Film Festival, stars Andreea Vasile as Bianca, a 40-year-old bride whose betrothal to Victor (Emilian Oprea) is upended by revelations that he’s been sleeping with his co-worker. With not only her wedding but her plans for the future now in question, Bianca flees the scene — and is quickly swept up in a rollicking, night-of-the-soul odyssey around a faded resort town.
Marked by caustic humor and biting comedy — and built around an audacious, 65-minute single take — “3 Days in September” is a departure for Giurgiu, who is also the TIFF founder and president.
His last film, the docudrama “The Spruce Forest,” released last year, was based on the 1941 massacre of up to 200 civilians by Soviet border troops as they attempted to cross into Romania. His previous work of fiction, “Freedom” (2023), is a tense dramatic thriller set during Romania’s 1989 revolution that follows armed clashes after an attack on a police station. (In the interim between the two productions, he made the documentary “Nasty,” a freewheeling portrait of the ’70s Romanian tennis bad boy Ilie Năstase, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024.)
