Palme d’Or Winner Cristian Mungiu Allies with Poland’s Kijora Films on ‘Tales of the Golden Age – The Warsaw Pact,’ and ‘The Incident’ (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comMarta Balaga Palme d’Or winner Cristian Mungiu and his Bucharest-based company Mobra Films will join forces with Poland’s Kijora Films on “Tales of the Golden Age – The Warsaw Pact,” a follow up to his 2009 sketch comedy referencing urban legends from the Ceausescu regime.
Expanding to accommodate stories from different ex-communist Eastern European countries, including Poland, it will be written by Mungiu and directed by Ioana Uricaru.
France’s Les Films du Worso is also on board. “Perhaps the most important function of comedy is to help us confront negative emotions and terrible events, and give us a way to talk about them that makes them less frightening.
The most effective comedies are set in tragic situations,” Mungiu and Uricaru said in a statement. “The stories presented in the script take place at a dark moment in history and talk about very grim issues in that comical and absurd way – one that Romanians and other Eastern Europeans have, over the years, perfected as their way of survival,” they added, promising to recreate “the unique, unmistakable atmosphere of the 1980s, which some viewers will recognize with nostalgia and others, younger ones, with curiosity.” The “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” and “R.M.N” director will continue his collaboration with Kijora also on Tomasz Wolski’s “The Incident.” It will mark Wolski’s first foray into fiction after Visions du Réel winner “1970” or Berlinale premiere “In Ukraine.” “There is a certain freshness and boldness that comes from filmmakers who are starting out.
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