Horia, the debut feature of Ana-Maria Comănescu

A road and coming-of-age movie that will inspire young audiences

Corina Sabău, 11.05.2024, 14:00

“Horia” is the title of Ana-Maria Comănescu’s debut feature film, which has recently been premiered in cinema halls across Romania. The film premiered at world level in November 2023, on the sidelines of the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia. Romanian audiences could watch the film for the first time at the Films de Cannes à Bucarest Film Festival, a selection of films premiered at Cannes Film Festival, in the Premiers of the Fall competition, where it won the Public Award. A road and coming-of-age movie, using a script written by Ana-Maria Comănescu herself, the film tells the story of Horia, an 18-year-old teenager in a Romanian village, who falls in love with a girl on the other side of the world. After an argument with his father, Horia makes an impulsive gesture and leaves home, taking his father’s old motorcycle. On the road he meets Stela, a clever little girl, and the two are forced by circumstances to travel together and overcome a series of obstacles. Before Horia, Ana-Maria Comănescu directed three shorts (In the House, Te mai uiți și la om and Pipa, sexul si omleta), each obtaining various awards and selections in student and international film festivals as well as two nominations at the Gopo Awards. With every film, Ana-Maria Comănescu tried to get out of her comfort zone and take risks. She did the same with Horia, picking Vladimir Țeca and Angelina Pavel, two debutante actors, for the main roles. The two cross the country on a Mobra motorcycle manufactured in Romania in the 1970s. Ana-Maria Comănescu told us more.

“I also did a road movie in college, but then the characters drove a car, not a motorbike, that’s why it was a little simpler, technically speaking. I love this kind of shooting where you’re always on the go, moving from one place to the next. It’s complicated, indeed, but it’s also fun, and you’re left with a crazy but lovely experience. From the beginning, I wanted my debut film to be a road movie. It’s one of my favorite genres, and it’s always a pleasure to play with a genre that is already out there, because you can spice it up with all kinds of elements from other genres. So, initially, we started from this idea of ​​making a road movie. Then I thought about the transformation Horia, the main character, undergoes during his journey. Because it is obvious that, at first, Horia is less mature compared to the end of the film. This trip, which lasts no more than a week, succeeds in making him a man. And I found this aspect of the story very interesting to explore: the fact that Horia leaves his village located somewhere in Dobrogea for the first time, thinking that this journey will be a short one, that it would last a day at most. But his journey is an initiation, a journey that turns out to be much longer and more complicated than he had anticipated. And, very importantly, once he leaves his village, Horia discovers the world for the first time. Which is precisely what I wanted viewers to discover together with him, to somehow accompany him on this journey so important for him. As I said before, the film also appeals to nostalgia and I think that through Horia we can also relive that period, the period in which we make the transition from adolescence to adulthood. I think most of us have done crazy things in our teens, taken risks when we were in love and hoped that our love was reciprocated. I thought Horia’s story is one that many of us can relate to”.

Ana-Maria Comănescu, the screenwriter and director of Horia, told us what prompted her to cast Vladimir Țeca and Angelina Pavel as the male and female leads and how she built the relationship between the characters:

“I worked on this script for many years, I rewrote it many times and it became clear to me that the Horia-Stela relationship is, in fact, the backbone of this film. It is the relationship with Stela that helps Horia change and embark on his transformational journey. That’s why it was important for the story that there were some differences between the two, that they somehow completed each other. Whereas Horia is an introverted and anxious character, scared of the world around himself, Stela is the opposite. She is open, very flexible, she can adapt to any situation. And I think each of the characters learns something from the other. In addition, I really wanted not to fall into the trap of a romantic plot. That’s why I chose to make the age difference between Horia and Stela still significant. And a thirteen-year-old girl like Stela can often be a lot more mature than an eighteen-year-old boy like Horia”.

Liviu Cheloiu, Daniela Nane, Mihaela Velicu, Dragoș Olaru and Robert Onofrei are also cast in the film. The film was shot in spectacular areas in Romania, which the public will have the opportunity to discover from a fresh perspective. (VP)