Centre for Romanian Studies

40th BERLIN Film Festival (Feb. 2010): Romanian Film entries:

Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man  (Portretul luptătorului la tinereţe)

Constantin Popescu

Romania 2010

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When the Soviet Army marched into Romania in 1944, a part of the Romanian population went “into the mountains” – a diverse assortment of nationalists and fascists, liberals, apolitical farmers and members of the middle-class, who were affected by the Communists’ expropriations. Over a thousand armed resistance groups took refuge in the inaccessible forests of the Carpathian Mountains where they waited in vain for the support of the Western Allies. Thirty of them held their ground well into the 1950s. One was led by Ion Gavrilă-Ogoranu, who managed to remain undetected until 1976 when he was arrested.

Constantin Popescu’s feature film depicts the daily existence of this group. With the strictness of protocol, it tells the story of a struggle that became an end in itself, as the enemy was constantly in pursuit and arrest meant torture and often liquidation. Hungry and emotionally withdrawn, the group of young men got entangled in a partisan war that could not be won, lost in the landscape of the South Carpathians, accompanied by a vigilant secret police, the Securitate. The everyday life of a hunt that was far from the heroism attributed to the glorified anti-communist resistance today.

(Preview: Bernd Buder)

Production: Filmex Film Romania, Bucharest,  Screenplay: Constantin Popescu, Camera: Liviu Mărghidan

Cast: Constantin Diţă, Ionuţ Caras, Bogdan Dumitrache, Cătălin Babliuc, Ion Bechet, Vasile Calofir, Constantin Lupescu, Dan Bordeianu

Format: 35mm, color and black-and-white,  Running time: 163 min.,Language: Romanian

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Povestea Grupului Gavrilă primul film al trilogiei „Apoape linişte“ despre Rezistenţa Anticomunistă „Portretul luptătorului la tinereţe“ a fost selectat şi va fi prezentat la Festivalul Filmului de la Berlin Regizorul Constantin Popescu jr. a relatat în exclusivitate pentru Monitorul de Făgăraş greutăţile prin care a trecut pînă la realizarea peliculei Ion Gavrilă Ogoanu este interpretat de actorul Constantin Diţă Personajele au numele reale ale luptătorilor anticomunişti ai Grupului Gavrilă care au activat în Munţii Făgăraşului Filmul va avea, în curînd, o premieră şi la Făgăraş

http://www.monitorfg.ro/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1454:ion-gavril-ogoranu-personaj-de-film&catid=43:tiri-locale&Itemid=29