Romanian filmmaker Florin Şerban, whose bleak study of systemic racism and toxic masculinity “You Don’t Belong Here” won the Golden Leopard at the recently wrapped Locarno Film Festival, is prepping his next feature film.
Speaking to Variety at the Sarajevo Film Festival, where “You Don’t Belong Here” is playing in the main competition, the director shared details about his next project, “Ela, or the Diary of a Dutiful Daughter From Romania,” for which casting is already underway.
Written by Adriana Neagoe, “Ela” is “a story about a girl who needs to go away from a family that is very troubled, bounded by alcoholism and violence. She needs to leave before she repeats the story herself, because her life is going in that direction,” said Şerban.
Inspired by the book “Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter,” by French existentialist philosopher and writer Simone de Beauvoir, the film follows a young Romanian woman who keeps a TikTok diary “where she documents the way she wants her life to be,” said Şerban, “not the way her life actually is.”
The film, which has received support from Romania’s CNC, will be produced by Şerban’s Bucharest-based label Fantascope Films, Scharf Film and Avanpost. Şerban is currently searching for international co-producers.
