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Curzon Screen Salon events
POLICE, ADJECTIVE AND CINEMA’S NEW WAVES
hosted by film critic Ian Haydn Smith

Sunday 3 October 2010 at 14.30 and 19.45
Starting at 14.30 at Curzon Richmond, Water Lane, Richmond TW9 1TJ; Box Office 0871 7033 992
Starting at 19.45 at Renoir Cinema, The Brunswick, London WC1N 1AW; Box Office 0871 7033 991
www.curzoncinemas.com

From Neo-realism and the Nouvelle Vague to the Czech New Wave and the movie brats of 70s Hollywood, critics have made the most of celebrating filmmaking collectives from around the world. With the success of 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, 12:08 East of Bucharest, California Dreamin’ andThe Death of Mr Lazarescu, is Romanian cinema currently experiencing its own new wave?

The Curzon Screen Salons are a series of illustrated lectures before the regular screenings. Hosted by Ian Haydn Smith, Editor of the International Film Guide.

WIN TICKETS!
The Ratiu Foundation/The Romanian Cultural Centre offers you the opportunity to win one pair of tickets for each Curzon Screen Salon. All you have to do is to reply to this question: What is name of Corneliu Porumboiu’s hometown, which is also the setting for POLICE, ADJECTIVE?
Send your replies by Thursday 30 September 2010 at mail@romanianculturalcentre.org.uk. Don’t forget to include in your message your FULL NAME and a TELEPHONE NUMBER where we can contact you. The winners will be selected through a raffle from all the correct answers received by the end of 30 September 2010, and will be notified in writing at the e-mail address provided.

SPECIAL TREAT:
AN INTERVIEW WITH CORNELIU PORUMBOIU, BY IAN HAYDN SMITH
For the benefit of our readership, we reproduce below an interview with Corneliu Porumboiu by Ian Haydn Smith, which appeared in the September/October 2010 issue of Curzon Magazine (republished here courtesy of Curzon Cinemas).

Law & Disorder
In Police, Adjective a sting operation transforms into a rumination on ethics and morality. Ian Haydn Smith questions director Corneliu Porumboiu.

[…] Like his feature debut, 12:08 East of Bucharest, Corneliu Porumboiu’s new film is a beguilingly simple drama about what motivates our actions and how morality has a different meaning for all of us.

IAN HAYDN SMITH: What was the genesis of the film?

CORNELIU PORUMBOIU: I heard two stories that inspired me. One was about a teenager in a small city who betrayed his brother, a student in Bucharest, who gave him some hash. The second incident happened to a friend of mine, a police officer, who didn’t want to solve a case about people smoking hash because he didn’t want to have on his conscience the ruined life of some young guy.

IHS: Police, Adjective only focuses on Cristi. We see the people he is following in the distance, but are shown nothing of their lives.

CP: There were three drafts of the script. The first version was more classical in structure. But after that, my friend told me his story. Cop dramas are usually a simple case of good versus bad – you don’t usually see the crisis that an officer might go through. I looked at real investigation reports, which are written in a specific style. If you have to write these reports day after day, I think you would begin to see the world in a different way, and that was where my interest in the story lay.

IHS: You employ a very specific shooting style, opening with long shots of the officer following his suspects. Did you want to shoot this way to highlight his involvement in the case?

CP: Perhaps the most important element of cinema is in our understanding of a character. I was obsessed with Cristi’s daily life, his routine, in which he spends most of his time on his own. It was important to convey this sense of his loneliness. The long shots, the way he’s dressed – not wanting to be seen by the other characters – all feed into detailing this character, and how someone in this situation would conform to what the system requires.

IHS: Like the characters who debate their role in the 1989 revolution in 12:08 East of Bucharest, your new film also explores questions of interpretation, this time in terms of the letter and the spirit of the law.

CP: In the situation that the character is in, I think it’s hard to be yourself everyday. They are required to follow the letter of the law without thinking. The Chief (Vlad Ivanov, who played the abortionist in 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days), over time, has found his own way of coping with this. He has certitudes that have allowed him to see the world his way and he wants everyone, including Cristi, to support his way of thinking.

POLICE, ADJECTIVE by CORNELIU PORUMBOIU
opening on 1 October 2010 at Curzon Mayfair, Renoir and Richmond
Romania, 2009, 113 mins. Cast: Dragos Bucur, Vlad Ivanov, Irina Saulescu, Ion Stoica, Marian Ghenea
One of the most critically acclaimed films of the year and a double prize-winner at Cannes 2009,Police, Adjective is the new whip-smart, mordant comedy from Corneliu Porumboiu (12:08 East of Bucharest). Cristi (Dragos Bucur) is an undercover cop who undergoes a crisis of conscience when he is pressured to arrest a teenager who offers hash to classmates. Not wanting to ruin the life of a young man he considers merely irresponsible, Cristi must either allow the arrest to be a burden on his conscience, or face censure by his superior (Vlad Ivanov, 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days), for whom the word ‘conscience’ has an entirely different meaning.