Alina Grigore’s
\ndebut feature, Blue Moon, last year scooped the Golden Shell award for best
\nfilm at the International Film Festival in San Sebastian (SSIFF), Spain, one of
\nthe most prestigious events of its kind in Europe. Blue Moon was written and
\ndirected by Alina Grigore and features Ioana Chi\u021bu, Mircea Postelnicu, Mircea
\nSilaghi and Vlad Ivanov in its cast. The script draws on Alina Grigore’s
\npersonal experience, who spent part of her childhood in a village in Neam\u021b
\nCounty. Girls my age in particular were given no chance of developing. The physical
\nand psychological abuses we endured were commonplace in our village, Alina
\nGrigore recalls. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Blue Moon tells the story of Irina, a young girl who wants
\nto leave her dysfunctional family and dreams of studying in the capital city,
\nyet fails, plagued by the violence surrounding her. The main prize in the San
\nSebastian competition went to a low-budget film produced by a very passionate group
\nof filmmakers at the National Center for Cinematography. We spoke to Alina
\nGrigore about the prize she won, how she managed to turn her own experience
\ninto a film and about her unusual behind-the-scenes work ethic.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
I used to
\nlive in the countryside for a while. I was seven when I left Bucharest to live
\nin a village in Neam\u021b County,
\nand it was quite the culture shock for me. Moving felt even more shocking since
\nI was very young and used to living in a different kind of community. So I
\nstarted penning a diary of everything that happened, and I continued writing about
\nit even later, when I revisited my diary. First of all, parents had no interest
\nin educating their children, because their top concern was surviving. Children
\nwere encouraged to either stay and take care of the household or seek work abroad.
\nI recall one time when I went home to do my homework, and my best friend was
\ngoing home too to work the land. This was back in the first or second grade, in
\nthe 90s. Unfortunately, things haven’t changed much ever since. Children
\nin the rural area are not encouraged to continue their studies. Inspired by
\neverything I’d seen, I started writing the book I hope to publish one day. We
\nproduced this film using the InLight acting school method, meaning we come up
\nwith an idea and everyone pitches in to develop it. Once I wrote the script, it
\nwas a sustained effort, which required talking to the actors about their
\ncharacters and cut-scenes, with the image director and editor. That’s how we
\nstarted to discover what actually drives our characters. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The director of the film Blue Moon told us more
\nabout the use of the InLight acting technique, which also gave the name of an
\nacting school founded by Alina Grigore together with a team of artists:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The novelty
\nabout InLight is that we focus on collaboration with the actors and other
\nmembers of the team. In other words, we encourage everyone in the team to say
\nhow they see things, we talk to the director of photography, to the editor, we
\nanalyse the script and we discuss the characters and situations. In my opinion,
\nit is quite captivating. We put together character descriptions, we come up
\nwith suggestions, we improvise. As far as the plot goes, we have looked for and
\nfound common memories-and given that the topic is family, it is impossible not
\nto find things in common. And all this research, all this background work is
\nvery helpful for actors. It is a great help, when you are on the set, to
\ndiscover things you have in common with others, to know the motivations of your
\npartner in that particular scene. This is one aspect. Secondly, I was
\ninterested in what the actors think about the script, how they approach it. For
\nme, this kind of collaborative work is very important. When a text is
\ntranslated, I am even interested in what the translator thinks about the text,
\nso obviously the suggestions coming from the actors and the rest of the team
\nare very important for me. I think collaboration is more efficient because,
\nwhen you allow the others to explore, they reach a higher level of creativity,
\nwhich is useful to you as a director because you can benefit from this
\ncreativity. In contrast, if you are the kind of director who only coordinates,
\nthere is not much communication. So, this is what InLight is all about:
\ncollaboration. And if you trust this kind of approach, it is my belief that you
\ninvite more emotion, especially in character building. And finally, you have a
\nhappier team, where each member knows they can express themselves freely, although
\nobviously within some limits. There were several scenes where the actors were
\nabsolutely free, and I’m thinking especially about a scene with Mircea
\nPostelnicu and Ioana Chi\u021bu, which everybody said came out like a dance, like a
\ntango between the director of photography, the director and the actors. And this
\nis exactly what I want-I want making a film to be like a dance with the others.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Until Blue Moon, director Alina Grigore was mostly
\nknown as an actress. She played in several series and in the feature film Illegitime
\ndirected by Adrian Sitaru, for which she was also the screenwriter. (tr. V. Palcu, A.M. Popescu)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alina Grigore’s debut feature, Blue Moon, won the Golden Shell for best film at the International Film Festival in San Sebastian (SSIFF)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":163639,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44685],"tags":[45107,41731,45104,30692,29241,45103,45106,32515,45105],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-163638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-of-culture","tag-acting","tag-alina","tag-blue-moon","tag-festival","tag-film","tag-grigore","tag-inlight","tag-school","tag-ssiff"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n