The Romanian film “Ana, mon amour”, directed by Calin Peter Netzer, has won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution, the prize being handed during the gala at the Berlin International Film Festival Saturday evening.
The prize was awarded to Dana Bunescu for editing the movie.
The film was screened in world premiere Friday evening within the official competition in Berlin and will be screened in Romania as of March 3.
The screenplay is signed by Călin Peter Netzer, Cezar Paul Bădescu, Iulia Lumânare.
Director Călin Peter Netzer won the Golden Bear in 2013 with the film ‘Child’s Pose’.
The leading actors are Mircea Postelnicu and Diana Cavallioti. Known for her parts in “Memories from the Golden age-2” and TV series “One step ahead” and “A mad week”, actress Diana Cavallioti is collaborating with Netzer for the first time.
“Ana, mon amour” is a co-production Augenschein Filmproduktion (DE) and Sophie Dulac Productions (FR) and is distributed in Romania by Freeman Entertainment.
The film is a complicated love story. Toma and Ana meet at university. A love affair begins that is full of hopes and dreams and suffused by the feeling that each needs the other in equal measure. Ana has a complicated family background and suffers from severe panic attacks. Middle-class Toma is as shocked as he is fascinated by the deep well of despair he encounters in his beloved. Toma gives Ana his complete support and takes her to see a string of doctors. At the same time the two begin to isolate themselves from their families and friends. Ana’s weakness appears to make Toma stronger. When she falls pregnant, Ana embarks on a therapy based on analytical psychoanalysis from which she emerges a stronger person. But then Toma’s world begins to topple … Călin Peter Netzer’s film blends romantic drama with a study of mental illness and how it is overcome. Unfolding like a complex puzzle structured around Toma’s psychoanalytical sessions, the narrative plunges into the past in a series of sustained flashbacks. Scenes from a complex marriage that reveal numerous connections to the repressed depths and taboos of Romanian society, berlinale.de informs.
The Golden bear for Best film went to the Hungarian movie ‘On Body and Soul’.