No Rest for the Old Lady is Andrei
\nGruzsniczki’s fourth feature, which has been presented in the official
\nselection of the International Film Festival in Moscow. The event has reached its
\n43rd edition, and took place over April 22-29. Andrei Gruzsniczki’s
\nfilm was screened outside in the main competition, in the Third Age program.
\nThe story of the film takes place in a village in Oltenia, southern Romania,
\nfocusing on the life-long friendship of Emil and Titi. The two protagonists
\nreflect two types of knowledge: positive, analytical knowledge, and intuitive, mystery-wrapped
\nknowledge. I wanted to create a new type of cinema that observes and records
\nfacts, actions, day-to-day experiences, from the prospect of ‘the struggle’ that
\ndefies the passage of time, Andrei Gruzsniczki told us.<\/p>\n
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I’ve picked this less commercial
\ntopic while observing elderly people, seeing how difficult it is for them to
\nmake a living. At the same time, I was also inspired by the story of a man whom
\nI was very fond of and whose enthusiasm and eagerness to experiment new things
\nwere truly inspiring, despite his old age. Woody Allen once said that life is
\nboth sad and short. This particular dichotomy, this love-and-hate attitude
\ntowards life, is what I’ve tried to capture in this film, with the help of
\nthese two characters. Of course, I’ve spiced the story up a bit by adding a
\nlove story. I’ve set the characters into a rural, idyllic setting, where
\neverything is supposed to be wonderful, since there’s this ongoing clich\u00e9 that
\nlife is beautiful and perfect in the countryside. In fact, the two characters
\nfeel very lonely and abandoned, which is why the stories that develop in their
\nwake can either bring them closer together or, on the contrary, set them
\nfurther apart. Obviously, the film also follows the transformations the two
\ncharacters undergo, as both Emil and Titi give up on their prior assumptions
\nand come to embrace conflicting beliefs, the other’s beliefs. They both
\nexperience a willingness to maintain their friendship, their very special
\nrelationship. Emil is the positive one, who goes to the doctor and who doesn’t
\nbelieve in the power of holy relics, while Titi, at the outset of the film, is exactly
\nthe opposite. <\/p>\n
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Andrei Gruzsniczki’s debut
\nfilm, The Other Irina, won the Grand Prize and the FIRPRESCI Award at the CineP\u00e9cs
\nMoveast IFF 2008, was designated best Romanian feature at the 2009 Transylvania
\nInternational Film Festival and scooped the ANONIMUL Trophy the very same year.
\nHis second feature, Quod Erat Demonstrandum (Q.E.D.), grabbed international
\nawards, including the Jury’s Special Prize at the 2013 Film Festival in Rome,
\nthe Golden Taiga Award at the 2014 Spirit of Fire International Debut Film
\nFestival, and Prix de Syndicat Francais de la Critique de Cinema at the 2014
\nArras International Film Festival. <\/p>\n
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Zavera, Andrei Gruzsniczki’s
\nthird feature, was premiered worldwide in November, 2019, in the official
\ncompetition of the International Film Festival in Cairo. For his first two
\nfeatures, Andrei Gruzsniczki worked together with Vivi Dr\u0103gan Vasile for image
\nediting and with Tudor Panduru for Zavera. For No Rest for the Old Lady he
\nco-opted Lauren\u021biu R\u0103ducanu for image directing. The film’s cast includes Mircea
\nAndreescu, Valer Dellakeza, Gabriel Spahiu, Marian Negrescu, Simona Urs, \u0218tefan
\nMirea, Valeriu B\u00e2zu and Eugen Titu. Andrei Gruzsniczki told us more: <\/p>\n
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I like to have young people
\non my team, to see how they work together. I spoke to Tudor Panduru long before
\nmaking my third film, but we only got together for Zavera, when he had already
\ndirected a number of films. For this film I also wanted to work together with a
\nyoung cameraman, Lauren\u021biu R\u0103ducanu,
\nwho was extraordinary. As for the actors, I couldn’t pick young, unexperimented
\npeople for this film, as the story didn’t allow it. What I wanted to do was to
\npinpoint the action in the film, which is why the filming screw spent a couple
\nof months in Oltenia, in the Dr\u0103g\u0103\u0219ani area. I’ve picked the location because I
\ndecided to cast local actors. I worked with actors from Craiova and T\u00e2rgu Jiu
\nand I used a lot of stuntmen who performed admirably. As regards the leading
\nactors, I would like to say that Mircea Andreescu and Valer Dellakeza are two extraordinarily
\ngifted actors. <\/p>\n
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The
\nfilm is produced by Andreea Dumitrescu, Oana Bujgoi-Giurgiu and Anamaria Antoci.
\nNo Rest for the Old Lady was filmed in spring, 2019, and completed
\npost-production at the end of 2020. (V.P.)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An overview of Andrei Gruzsniczki’s fourth feature<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":163339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44685],"tags":[45070,45071],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-163338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-of-culture","tag-andrei-gruzsniczki","tag-no-rest-for-the-old-lady"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n