Olateanu Debuts Pandemic Midlife Drama at Transilvania Festival
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- Marius Olteanu is presenting his second feature, "We Won't Get Old Together," in the Works in Progress program of the Transilvania International Film Festival (June 12–21), six years after his Berlin-premiering debut.
- The film centers on Radu, a 40-year-old unemployed architect caught between a long-term partner in Lisbon and a younger lover in Bucharest, who avoids test results for a potentially life-threatening diagnosis during the pandemic.
- Olteanu called the film "a slo-mo journey towards an unavoidable future," and said Romania's tolerance of homosexuality extends only "as long as it's kept between the walls of your apartment" — a tension he uses as narrative framework across three locked-down Bucharest apartments.
- Olteanu's 2019 debut "Monsters." won the Tagesspiegel Audience Award in Berlin's Forum strand and earned a glowing Variety review from Jessica Kiang.
- Oana Giurgiu of Bucharest-based Point Film produces, with co-production from France's Martine Vidalenc of Midralgar Films; the crew includes sound designer Alexandru Dragomir ("12:08 East of Bucharest"), sound mixer Bruno Ehlinger ("Uncle Boonmee"), colorist Andu Radu, and VFX artist Thierry Delobel ("Bacurau").
Why it matters: Six years after a Berlin-winning debut, Olteanu returns with a film that uses the pandemic's locked-down apartments to dramatize closeted life in Romania — staking a deliberate visibility claim in a country where, by his own account, that identity is tolerated only behind closed doors. The France-Romania co-production and internationally credentialed crew position the project for festival play well beyond Transilvania's Works in Progress showcase.
