Roma Director Alina Șerban Debuts "I Matter" at Venice — SkimNews
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- Alina Șerban's feature directorial debut "I Matter" world premieres in the Venice Film Festival's Spotlight section, billed as the first feature from a female Roma director to screen at an A-list festival.
- "I Matter" follows a young Roma woman studying to be an actor who faces expulsion from her orphanage; the film is inspired by Șerban's own life and expands her 2021 short of the same name, which played at New Directors/New Films.
- The feature is produced by microFILM, 2Pilots Filmproduction, Frakas Prods., and Lemming Film, with international sales handled by Pluto Film, and stars newcomer Denisa Farcaș in the lead.
- Șerban was raised in poverty in Bucharest, placed in a state-run orphanage as a child, became the first in her family to graduate high school, then trained at Bucharest's Academy of Theatrical Arts and Cinematography, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
- Nearly two dozen cast members will attend the Venice premiere, including 16 child performers from the film's orphanage scenes, while Roma band Mahala Rai Banda will serenade red-carpet arrivals.
- Șerban frames her work as a mission to "show the humanity of these people. Not to portray them as victims nor villains. Not to self-exoticize. But also to celebrate ourselves."
Why it matters: The premiere delivers a concrete representational milestone — the first feature from a female Roma director at an A-list festival — while Șerban's insistence on depicting Roma women with agency rather than victimhood challenges the dominant framing of marginalized communities at European festivals.
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