THE WHISTLERS
O.V in Romanian, English and Spanish subtitled in English and Spanish
In an unusual turn towards noir film, Porumboiu comes up with this playful game, Hitchcock meets Kaurismaki's humor: a new milestone for this Rumanian master. The starting point is Cristi, a corrupt policeman who travels to La Gomera to learn the Canary whistle, ancestral language, in which he would be able to communicate in code with the Mafia. Drug trafficking, a loot of 30 million euros, cross betrayals, a femme fatale, cinematographic references, and shocking soundtrack: La Gomera has it all.
Direction: Corneliu Porumboiu
Script: Corneliu Porumboiu
Cinematography: Tudor Mircea RSC
Editing: Roxana Szel
Cast: Vlad Ivanov, Catrinel Marlon, Rodica Lazar, Antonio Buil, Agustí Villaronga, Sabin Tambrea
Production: Marcela Mindru Ursu, Patricia Poienaru, Sylvie Pialat, Benoît Quainon, Janine Jackowski, Jonas Dornbach, Maren Ade
Production Company: 42 Km Film, Les fims du Worso, Komplizen Film
CORNELIU PORUMBOIU
He was born in Romania in 1975, and studied film in Bucharest. He is a key figure in the Romanian New Wave cinema. With his first film, 12:08 East of Bucharest, he won the Caméra d’Or in Cannes, a festival to which he returned with the film that would establish him, Policía, Adjetivo (2009), which won the Jury Award in the Certain Regard Section and the Fipresci Award, along with many others at international festivals. Then came fiction films such as When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism (2013), premiered at Locarno and shown at the Seville Festival, and The Treasure (2015), again a prize winner at Cannes. Infinite Football, his second non-fiction film about football, after The Second Game (2014), was part of the New Waves Non Fiction Section in Sevilla. La Gomera was part of the Palme d’Or Competition in Cannes this year.