27/04/2023 - The film centres on a director played by Emanuel Pârvu, who becomes obsessed with uncovering secrets in his family’s past

After winning the Golden Bear at the Berlinale with Child’s Pose [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Calin Peter Netzer
film profile] in 2013 and releasing Ana, Mon Amour [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Călin Peter Netzer
film profile] in 2017, Romanian director Peter Călin Netzer is putting the finishing touches to his newest drama, Familiar [+see also:
film review
interview: Călin Peter Netzer
film profile]. The film is being staged by Netzer and Oana Iancu’s Parada Film, with Cinema DeFacto (France), Gaijin (France) and Volos Films (Taiwan) co-producing. Sales agent Beta Cinema will kick off pre-sales for Familiar at the Cannes Marché du Film next month.

The screenplay, written by the director with actress-screenwriter Iulia Lumânare, follows Dragoş (Emanuel Pârvu, fresh off his excellent part in Bogdan George Apetri’s thriller Miracle [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bogdan George Apetri
film profile]), a film director in his forties who decides to make a movie about his family's emigration to Germany in the 1980s. Because the emigration occurred in suspicious circumstances, Dragoș investigates undercover, with help from his former girlfriend, Ilinca (Lumânare). The collaboration brings the two closer together, however, making matters more complicated with Dragoş’s fiancée. As he delves deeper into his family's past, secrets come to light, leading to revelations about certain ties with the Secret Service. Trapped in his own story and with his fiancée announcing her pregnancy, Dragoș must make a decision that will impact the future of everyone involved.

The Romanian National Film Center supported the picture with an amount to the tune of €680,000. Familiar was also supported by the Taiwan Creative Content Agency, Taiwan’s International Co-funding Programme, the French CNC and the European Union’s Creative Europe – MEDIA programme. Barbu Bălăşoiu and Adrian Butică are the film’s DoPs, while Dana Bunescu is in charge of the editing. The movie was shot in the summer of 2022, with the team spending two weeks in Germany in August. Supporting characters are played by Ana Ciontea, Adrian Titieni, Victoria Moraru and Vlad Ivanov.

In a press release, director Peter Călin Netzer comments on his approach to writing and directing Familiar: “The film is built with the thoroughness of a detective investigation. Using the present as a tool that makes the past intelligible, my main character, Dragoș, instinctively recreates the mise-en-scène of the past, recreating the love triangle his parents once had formed, leading to a never-reconciled disruption of the family. Familiar is a complex story about our ever-profound search for identity and truth.”