CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’
(ENDLESS) (Cert TBC)
(NESFARSIT)
A film by Cristian Nemescu
Winner ‘Un Certain Regard’ - Cannes Film Festival 2007
Winner Satyajit Ray Award - (at the London Film Festival 2007)
Starring
Armand Assante, Razvan Vasilescu, Jamie Elman
Romania / 2007 / 155 Mins / In English, Romanian, Spanish & Italian with English subtitles / Colour / 1:1.85
Produced by MediaPro Pictures
UK RELEASE DATE: 11 APRIL 2008
Opening at selected West End Venues
and selected cinemas nationwide
US Marine Captain Jones is assigned to escort a train carrying NATO equipment headed for Yugoslavia during the war in Kosovo. His mission is thwarted by Doiaru, apparently a very thorough station master in a godforsaken village, who halts the train over a paperwork technicality. The community makes ridiculous efforts to welcome the Americans, intending to profit from their unexpected presence. The troops join the game - and Doiaru's own daughter has a brief affair with Sgt. McLaren. Tired of waiting to get help from higher up, Cpt Jones decides to take matters into his own hands. As he gets more and more involved with the locals, he stirs old arguments and reveals the real reason why Doiaru stopped his train. At the end of five intense days, the train resumes its journey leaving behind broken hearts, broken dreams and a near civil war.
Nemescu brings together a train of US marines and a tiny Romanian village to highlight Romanians long-term fascination with the 'elsewhere' and ultimately with America . At the end of World War II, the Romanian people wanted the Americans to rescue them from the Russians and communism; which didn’t happen. CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ is a timely examination of geopolitical longing and a lack of interventionism.
The story is based on a real event which Cristi heard about while he was watching the TV news. "That train which came in 1999 did have a radar, there were not enough papers for it, because everybody had been in a hurry to let the train leave and because nobody thought that anybody might cause problems for that. At a certain moment, near Craiova, a few kilometers far from the place where it was supposed to arrive, it was halted in a small station; the station manager, due to his excessive zeal, started checking it according to all the railway regulations and indeed something was not right. The train was stopped there for half a day, and after that it resumed its way, reached the destination, but ironically it was already useless. Funny thing is that while going back it was halted again, because they still did not have the necessary papers.”In fact, the idea of the train with American soldiers halted in some Romanian village is the only real thing, the rest of the situations and characters are fictitious". -
Cristian Nemescu
In Armand Assante’s opinion: "the story is based on a true event that happened in Romania just prior to the Serbian bombing in Belgrade. There was in fact a true NATO shipment of incredibly important radar equipment that was intercepted in a check point here in Romania because the documentation was not presented to the railway manager. Aside from the fact that this created almost a national fiasco and lasted only four hours, in fact our film is very very loosely based on that event, but what Cristi’s done has created this wonderful human comedy of errors surrounding that event. It certainly shows how bureaucracy can completely run a mock. The characters are very well defined, very human characters, they’re not caricatures. It’s a story of a human dilemma, but in fact there’s quite a Romanian history to this event and it’s quite a complex little story in itself. Our story is more about human frailties of everyone involved: I play a commander whose NATO mission is endangered by this railway manager. The railroad manager in our story is a complete fiction, he’s been damaged by history, some bad things happened in his childhood that had scarred him emotionally in every way. In essence he’s a metaphor for what the damage of war can cause. He’s a completely corrupted character and I think when he meets the commander in a way he’s meeting someone that he wishes was there 50 years ago. So he sees someone who arrives and it’s like «why weren’t you there for my parents, when we needed you? Because we always wanted you to be here». The commander is looking at him thinking «you know, it would have been nice if I could have been here, but that’s not the real world, we cannot be in more than one place in the same time»".The preparations for the shooting started one month before, but a lot of things had been settled for a long time - a large part of the crew was ready, as there were people who had worked with Cristi on other projects too. So it was with the casting - Cristi knew very well some of the members of the cast (Maria Dinulescu, Andi Vasluianu, Alex Margineanu) and fully trusted them. "I think that the same criteria are valid also for several persons in the crew - Liviu Marghidan, DOP, Catalin Cristutiu - editor and Andrei Toncu, sound editor. The crew was formed while we where students and it has worked for several movies. Once you find persons that you get along with very well and that offer you stability, there is a sort of friendship taking shape. It is easier to work with somebody who you know that will support you when you make a choice, whom you can trust and with whom you know you can communicate when it comes to creative problems", says Cristi.After the first day of shooting, everybody was looking forward to seeing Armand Assante, and that happened the next day, on the 30th of May. A lot of people from the crew were ready for what was worse: a Hollywood star, with a lot of whims, arrogant, a person who will make everybody very nervous. Nothing could be as false as that. Assante is a modest person, he respects everyone around him, and on his first day of shooting he was as emoIon Sapdaru continued to feel quite intimidated because he was to meet Assante, and the first sequence with the American actor remained the most difficult for him. "There were rumors saying that he is a Hollywood star and it will be difficult to work with him, but it wasn’t like this at all. Assante is an extraordinary man, whom I admired from the first moment when I met him. I was very excited when we filmed the first sequence with him. It so happened that the first sequence was also the first moment when our characters met. I usually control my emotions, but now I was so tensed that I could hardly control anything. But he was absolutely extraordinary - it was lately that he admitted that he was excited too. He was the first to come to me and say: «Hello! I’m Armand Assante». I answered «I know». And then we started communicating".Cristi remembers how Assante was persuaded to act in a Romanian film: "It was also a coincidence from a certain point of view, because I couldn’t tell that when I was writing the script, I knew that I would choose Assante. We thought that it would be more credible if we had a foreign actor, and by the time when we were thinking who that person might be and how we could possibly reach him - from my point of view that was a difficult aspect, if not impossible for a movie in Romania - we learnt that Assante was visiting Romania. The producer of the film, Andrei Boncea, arranged a meeting for Assante and me. Assante had read the script before we met. Then, we talked for a while, he told me that he liked the script and the character Jones. I also thought him quite suited for that character, he was very much like the character that I imaginedAssante accepted the role first because of the script, and then, after he met Cristi, he became one of his fans: "I met Cristi Nemescu almost two years ago. I was here doing research, because I wanted to produce a film in Romania, I was meeting with Andrei Boncea, and he told me about this young Romanian director. So I met with Cristi and I read the script, which, at that point, was in a very loose form, but the story was wonderful".For Armand Assante, the universality of the theme is one of the strong points of the script: "I found the script of california dreamin’ (endless) to be almost a metaphor of the time we’re living. Even though it’s a Romanian story I find it to be a very international story, it’s a story about the ineptitude of bureaucracy that’s got out of control. In many levels I find the film as residence for almost every place in the world now, I find it to be very humorous, filled with pathos, great humanity, fun. I love the style of Cristi Nemescu as a director, I think he’s an enormously gifted young director, I’ve known Andrei Boncea for over 4 years and I had great trust and faith in the project that was offered to me. I think we had an incredible experience just in a few weeks in which we made it. We had a phenomenal crew, phenomenal group of talent here in Romania, so I have great aspirations for california dreamin’ (endless) as a film. I think it’s a film that could easily make the international film market, I think it’s an easy sole for the international festivals, it has a tremendous wide audience appeal, both young and old"In the first eleven days of shooting, the headquarters were set in Frunzanesti station (30 km far from Bucharest), then it moved to Comana (jud Giurgiu). If at Frunzanesti, the place where they were filming was quite isolated, at a short distance away from the village, in Comana, things were not like this any more. The party organized by the mayor for the Americans was filmed in the center of the village on several evenings, and so it happened with the sequences with the fight between Doiaru’s friends and his enemies. For the inhabitants of Comana not only the Americans were something new in their village, but also the film crew, and for one week and a half all of them represented the main attraction of the village. The girls immediately made a top of the most handsome guys, and for number one they chose Jamie Elman (of course, the fact that he was American counted a lor). Unfortunately, Jamie learnt that only a few days after they changed the filming locationJamie thinks that: "This film could not have been shot anywhere else, for me it wasn’t so much a question of acting or creating something that wasn’t really there because I was immersed in the Romanian culture and when we were shooting the village scenes in Comana it was absolute culture shock. Even the Romanian actors were reacting almost as much as I was in some of the things that we got to see, so it was a really special and unique experience for me to do the movie here and in a way it was a matter of going with the flow which is a very California kind of thing to do"Ion Sapdaru acted so well that the people from Comana forgot who their real mayor was and came to ask for all sorts of opinions concerning the administration of the village. Sapdaru did not contradict them, lest he should make them more confused. Sapdaru says: "One evening, somebody came to ask for help. He said «Sir, I have a problem», and I said «Come again on Monday with a written request and it’s solved». I must admit that I exaggerated a little bit, especially that I knew there was no filming on Monday. Another day, when we had the night filming, at 2 o’clock at night I met the guardian from the mayor’s office, who was quite drunk, and I told him «Boy, I’d like to get into the office». He answered «No problem, I can break the doors immediately». I stopped him in time, as he was very determined to do that. Well. I’m treated like a mayor and I can’t say I dislike it", he added laughing.It was also here that Assante met the station manager who stopped the train of the Americans in 1999. They talked for about two hours, and Andi Vasluianu was the translator (he had that experience with the role Marian). Florin Patrachioiu, the station manager from Pielesti (Dolj), tried to explain the circumstances in which in 1999, he became one of the most famous persons in Romania for a few days. Domnul Patrachioiu brought all the newspapers from that period, and at the end of their meeting he offered Armand Assante a present - it was a leather belt specific for that region - Oltenia.At Comana they filmed one of the most difficult sequences - the final fight, when Doiaru is killed. Besides the fact that it implied special effects, stunts, and about 60 extras to coordinate, the most important aspect for that sequence was the light. They filmed in a special moment, that is at the moment when night becomes day, as they needed the natural light (in June, this period is between 7 and 8 o’clock in the evening and between 5 and 6 o’clock in the morning).Maria Dinulescu has more reasons to consider this sequence as one of the most difficult ones: "It was difficult, because we had a similar experience in our real life, and now we literally lived that moment again. That particular sequence should be filmed in two stages: between 7 and 8 o’clock in the evening and between 5 and 6 o’clock in the morning. In the same time, while Doiaru was killed, there was an explosion with a car and there are also fireworks bursting out. It was a difficult sequence from the technical point of view and as far as it concerns me, it was also difficult from the emotional and physical point of view. I was supposed to get into the frame running and live the moment when he dies while almost strangling me. It so happened that I had some leg muscles strained, so that night I had my thighs tied with elastic band, and after each double a doctor used to come and help me get ready for the next sequence. I remember that I could hardly walk, but the moment that I heard "Action!" I knew that for one minute I existed only for the movie".In fact, that was not the only difficult sequence for Maria, as she herself admits: "A sequence as difficult as that was the one when Monica and David had sex together, but in this case it was difficult for me till the moment when we first heard them say «Action!». After that, things ran their own course and we all wanted this sequence to be one of the most interesting in the history of the Romanian movies. It was for the first time when I accepted to take off my clothes. I shared my character’s emotions and the director fully supported me".From Comana, the MediaPRO Pictures crew returned to the Studios in Buftea, and Jamie celebrated his birthday right on the filming set. Because he hadn’t told anybody that he was 30 that day, he thought that his anniversary will not be known. He was astonished when during the first break he found himself in front of a table with 3 birthday cakes and in the end he was happy because he learnt one more Romanian expression: "La multi ani!" (Happy birthday!), which was so difficult for him to pronounce.On the 8th of July, at 5 o’clock in the morning they shouted: "It’s a wrap!", and Napoleon from Shukar Collective gave a short concert for the crew which was still able to dance after 12 hours of filming. It did not matter that they were some where in Rahova district, among the blocks-of-flats where people gathered in their balconies, eager to see those crazy people leaving, after they had shouted
Cristian Nemescu (1979–2006) gained his diploma in 2003 from the Theatre and Film Academy in Bucharest. He wrote and directed five short films, nearly all awarded at domestic and foreign festivals, and then moved on to his first feature film California Dreamin’. This film, which he co-wrote, has the subtitle Endless – not in the sense of “unending”, but “unfinished”. The unfinished nature of the narrative was proven true. In a curel twist of fate Cristian Nemescu and his Sound Editor, Andrei Toncu were killed in a car accident on August 24, 2006. Nemescu was barely twenty-seven and his first feature was not yet completed; his prodigious debut was posthumously awarded the Un Certain Regard prize at the Cannes Film Festival 2007. It is not known whether he would have made any changes or revisions to what is now the film’s final version but Cristian Nemescu has left us a masterful and ambitious film that honours his great promise and his death is a huge loss to global cinema.
‘California Dreamin’ is a novice film, suffering from a variety of typical novice defects: its over-long, meandering endlessly, quite formless but never entirely uninteresting until some kind of epiphany/ending occurs. Life in a small Romanian village, when some GI’s arrive on their way to Serbia, is pleasantly evoked. There is some attempt to contrast the present day situation (well the situation in Romania at the end of the 1990s) with 1945. An undetonated WW2 bomb, thought initially to be a US Tomahawk missile then raining down on Serbia, at the end of the Milosevic era, is contrasted with the ultimate liberation of Romania from evil Communist or Nazi Totalitarianism by the Americans.
‘California Dreamin’ is a worthwhile though flawed film which might have led to more interesting works but for the untimely death of Nemescu.
(ENDLESS) (Cert TBC)
(NESFARSIT)
A film by Cristian Nemescu
Winner ‘Un Certain Regard’ - Cannes Film Festival 2007
Winner Satyajit Ray Award - (at the London Film Festival 2007)
Starring
Armand Assante, Razvan Vasilescu, Jamie Elman
Romania / 2007 / 155 Mins / In English, Romanian, Spanish & Italian with English subtitles / Colour / 1:1.85
Produced by MediaPro Pictures
UK RELEASE DATE: 11 APRIL 2008
Opening at selected West End Venues
and selected cinemas nationwide
US Marine Captain Jones is assigned to escort a train carrying NATO equipment headed for Yugoslavia during the war in Kosovo. His mission is thwarted by Doiaru, apparently a very thorough station master in a godforsaken village, who halts the train over a paperwork technicality. The community makes ridiculous efforts to welcome the Americans, intending to profit from their unexpected presence. The troops join the game - and Doiaru's own daughter has a brief affair with Sgt. McLaren. Tired of waiting to get help from higher up, Cpt Jones decides to take matters into his own hands. As he gets more and more involved with the locals, he stirs old arguments and reveals the real reason why Doiaru stopped his train. At the end of five intense days, the train resumes its journey leaving behind broken hearts, broken dreams and a near civil war.
Nemescu brings together a train of US marines and a tiny Romanian village to highlight Romanians long-term fascination with the 'elsewhere' and ultimately with America . At the end of World War II, the Romanian people wanted the Americans to rescue them from the Russians and communism; which didn’t happen. CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ is a timely examination of geopolitical longing and a lack of interventionism.
The story is based on a real event which Cristi heard about while he was watching the TV news. "That train which came in 1999 did have a radar, there were not enough papers for it, because everybody had been in a hurry to let the train leave and because nobody thought that anybody might cause problems for that. At a certain moment, near Craiova, a few kilometers far from the place where it was supposed to arrive, it was halted in a small station; the station manager, due to his excessive zeal, started checking it according to all the railway regulations and indeed something was not right. The train was stopped there for half a day, and after that it resumed its way, reached the destination, but ironically it was already useless. Funny thing is that while going back it was halted again, because they still did not have the necessary papers.”In fact, the idea of the train with American soldiers halted in some Romanian village is the only real thing, the rest of the situations and characters are fictitious". -
Cristian Nemescu
In Armand Assante’s opinion: "the story is based on a true event that happened in Romania just prior to the Serbian bombing in Belgrade. There was in fact a true NATO shipment of incredibly important radar equipment that was intercepted in a check point here in Romania because the documentation was not presented to the railway manager. Aside from the fact that this created almost a national fiasco and lasted only four hours, in fact our film is very very loosely based on that event, but what Cristi’s done has created this wonderful human comedy of errors surrounding that event. It certainly shows how bureaucracy can completely run a mock. The characters are very well defined, very human characters, they’re not caricatures. It’s a story of a human dilemma, but in fact there’s quite a Romanian history to this event and it’s quite a complex little story in itself. Our story is more about human frailties of everyone involved: I play a commander whose NATO mission is endangered by this railway manager. The railroad manager in our story is a complete fiction, he’s been damaged by history, some bad things happened in his childhood that had scarred him emotionally in every way. In essence he’s a metaphor for what the damage of war can cause. He’s a completely corrupted character and I think when he meets the commander in a way he’s meeting someone that he wishes was there 50 years ago. So he sees someone who arrives and it’s like «why weren’t you there for my parents, when we needed you? Because we always wanted you to be here». The commander is looking at him thinking «you know, it would have been nice if I could have been here, but that’s not the real world, we cannot be in more than one place in the same time»".The preparations for the shooting started one month before, but a lot of things had been settled for a long time - a large part of the crew was ready, as there were people who had worked with Cristi on other projects too. So it was with the casting - Cristi knew very well some of the members of the cast (Maria Dinulescu, Andi Vasluianu, Alex Margineanu) and fully trusted them. "I think that the same criteria are valid also for several persons in the crew - Liviu Marghidan, DOP, Catalin Cristutiu - editor and Andrei Toncu, sound editor. The crew was formed while we where students and it has worked for several movies. Once you find persons that you get along with very well and that offer you stability, there is a sort of friendship taking shape. It is easier to work with somebody who you know that will support you when you make a choice, whom you can trust and with whom you know you can communicate when it comes to creative problems", says Cristi.After the first day of shooting, everybody was looking forward to seeing Armand Assante, and that happened the next day, on the 30th of May. A lot of people from the crew were ready for what was worse: a Hollywood star, with a lot of whims, arrogant, a person who will make everybody very nervous. Nothing could be as false as that. Assante is a modest person, he respects everyone around him, and on his first day of shooting he was as emoIon Sapdaru continued to feel quite intimidated because he was to meet Assante, and the first sequence with the American actor remained the most difficult for him. "There were rumors saying that he is a Hollywood star and it will be difficult to work with him, but it wasn’t like this at all. Assante is an extraordinary man, whom I admired from the first moment when I met him. I was very excited when we filmed the first sequence with him. It so happened that the first sequence was also the first moment when our characters met. I usually control my emotions, but now I was so tensed that I could hardly control anything. But he was absolutely extraordinary - it was lately that he admitted that he was excited too. He was the first to come to me and say: «Hello! I’m Armand Assante». I answered «I know». And then we started communicating".Cristi remembers how Assante was persuaded to act in a Romanian film: "It was also a coincidence from a certain point of view, because I couldn’t tell that when I was writing the script, I knew that I would choose Assante. We thought that it would be more credible if we had a foreign actor, and by the time when we were thinking who that person might be and how we could possibly reach him - from my point of view that was a difficult aspect, if not impossible for a movie in Romania - we learnt that Assante was visiting Romania. The producer of the film, Andrei Boncea, arranged a meeting for Assante and me. Assante had read the script before we met. Then, we talked for a while, he told me that he liked the script and the character Jones. I also thought him quite suited for that character, he was very much like the character that I imaginedAssante accepted the role first because of the script, and then, after he met Cristi, he became one of his fans: "I met Cristi Nemescu almost two years ago. I was here doing research, because I wanted to produce a film in Romania, I was meeting with Andrei Boncea, and he told me about this young Romanian director. So I met with Cristi and I read the script, which, at that point, was in a very loose form, but the story was wonderful".For Armand Assante, the universality of the theme is one of the strong points of the script: "I found the script of california dreamin’ (endless) to be almost a metaphor of the time we’re living. Even though it’s a Romanian story I find it to be a very international story, it’s a story about the ineptitude of bureaucracy that’s got out of control. In many levels I find the film as residence for almost every place in the world now, I find it to be very humorous, filled with pathos, great humanity, fun. I love the style of Cristi Nemescu as a director, I think he’s an enormously gifted young director, I’ve known Andrei Boncea for over 4 years and I had great trust and faith in the project that was offered to me. I think we had an incredible experience just in a few weeks in which we made it. We had a phenomenal crew, phenomenal group of talent here in Romania, so I have great aspirations for california dreamin’ (endless) as a film. I think it’s a film that could easily make the international film market, I think it’s an easy sole for the international festivals, it has a tremendous wide audience appeal, both young and old"In the first eleven days of shooting, the headquarters were set in Frunzanesti station (30 km far from Bucharest), then it moved to Comana (jud Giurgiu). If at Frunzanesti, the place where they were filming was quite isolated, at a short distance away from the village, in Comana, things were not like this any more. The party organized by the mayor for the Americans was filmed in the center of the village on several evenings, and so it happened with the sequences with the fight between Doiaru’s friends and his enemies. For the inhabitants of Comana not only the Americans were something new in their village, but also the film crew, and for one week and a half all of them represented the main attraction of the village. The girls immediately made a top of the most handsome guys, and for number one they chose Jamie Elman (of course, the fact that he was American counted a lor). Unfortunately, Jamie learnt that only a few days after they changed the filming locationJamie thinks that: "This film could not have been shot anywhere else, for me it wasn’t so much a question of acting or creating something that wasn’t really there because I was immersed in the Romanian culture and when we were shooting the village scenes in Comana it was absolute culture shock. Even the Romanian actors were reacting almost as much as I was in some of the things that we got to see, so it was a really special and unique experience for me to do the movie here and in a way it was a matter of going with the flow which is a very California kind of thing to do"Ion Sapdaru acted so well that the people from Comana forgot who their real mayor was and came to ask for all sorts of opinions concerning the administration of the village. Sapdaru did not contradict them, lest he should make them more confused. Sapdaru says: "One evening, somebody came to ask for help. He said «Sir, I have a problem», and I said «Come again on Monday with a written request and it’s solved». I must admit that I exaggerated a little bit, especially that I knew there was no filming on Monday. Another day, when we had the night filming, at 2 o’clock at night I met the guardian from the mayor’s office, who was quite drunk, and I told him «Boy, I’d like to get into the office». He answered «No problem, I can break the doors immediately». I stopped him in time, as he was very determined to do that. Well. I’m treated like a mayor and I can’t say I dislike it", he added laughing.It was also here that Assante met the station manager who stopped the train of the Americans in 1999. They talked for about two hours, and Andi Vasluianu was the translator (he had that experience with the role Marian). Florin Patrachioiu, the station manager from Pielesti (Dolj), tried to explain the circumstances in which in 1999, he became one of the most famous persons in Romania for a few days. Domnul Patrachioiu brought all the newspapers from that period, and at the end of their meeting he offered Armand Assante a present - it was a leather belt specific for that region - Oltenia.At Comana they filmed one of the most difficult sequences - the final fight, when Doiaru is killed. Besides the fact that it implied special effects, stunts, and about 60 extras to coordinate, the most important aspect for that sequence was the light. They filmed in a special moment, that is at the moment when night becomes day, as they needed the natural light (in June, this period is between 7 and 8 o’clock in the evening and between 5 and 6 o’clock in the morning).Maria Dinulescu has more reasons to consider this sequence as one of the most difficult ones: "It was difficult, because we had a similar experience in our real life, and now we literally lived that moment again. That particular sequence should be filmed in two stages: between 7 and 8 o’clock in the evening and between 5 and 6 o’clock in the morning. In the same time, while Doiaru was killed, there was an explosion with a car and there are also fireworks bursting out. It was a difficult sequence from the technical point of view and as far as it concerns me, it was also difficult from the emotional and physical point of view. I was supposed to get into the frame running and live the moment when he dies while almost strangling me. It so happened that I had some leg muscles strained, so that night I had my thighs tied with elastic band, and after each double a doctor used to come and help me get ready for the next sequence. I remember that I could hardly walk, but the moment that I heard "Action!" I knew that for one minute I existed only for the movie".In fact, that was not the only difficult sequence for Maria, as she herself admits: "A sequence as difficult as that was the one when Monica and David had sex together, but in this case it was difficult for me till the moment when we first heard them say «Action!». After that, things ran their own course and we all wanted this sequence to be one of the most interesting in the history of the Romanian movies. It was for the first time when I accepted to take off my clothes. I shared my character’s emotions and the director fully supported me".From Comana, the MediaPRO Pictures crew returned to the Studios in Buftea, and Jamie celebrated his birthday right on the filming set. Because he hadn’t told anybody that he was 30 that day, he thought that his anniversary will not be known. He was astonished when during the first break he found himself in front of a table with 3 birthday cakes and in the end he was happy because he learnt one more Romanian expression: "La multi ani!" (Happy birthday!), which was so difficult for him to pronounce.On the 8th of July, at 5 o’clock in the morning they shouted: "It’s a wrap!", and Napoleon from Shukar Collective gave a short concert for the crew which was still able to dance after 12 hours of filming. It did not matter that they were some where in Rahova district, among the blocks-of-flats where people gathered in their balconies, eager to see those crazy people leaving, after they had shouted
Cristian Nemescu (1979–2006) gained his diploma in 2003 from the Theatre and Film Academy in Bucharest. He wrote and directed five short films, nearly all awarded at domestic and foreign festivals, and then moved on to his first feature film California Dreamin’. This film, which he co-wrote, has the subtitle Endless – not in the sense of “unending”, but “unfinished”. The unfinished nature of the narrative was proven true. In a curel twist of fate Cristian Nemescu and his Sound Editor, Andrei Toncu were killed in a car accident on August 24, 2006. Nemescu was barely twenty-seven and his first feature was not yet completed; his prodigious debut was posthumously awarded the Un Certain Regard prize at the Cannes Film Festival 2007. It is not known whether he would have made any changes or revisions to what is now the film’s final version but Cristian Nemescu has left us a masterful and ambitious film that honours his great promise and his death is a huge loss to global cinema.
‘California Dreamin’ is a novice film, suffering from a variety of typical novice defects: its over-long, meandering endlessly, quite formless but never entirely uninteresting until some kind of epiphany/ending occurs. Life in a small Romanian village, when some GI’s arrive on their way to Serbia, is pleasantly evoked. There is some attempt to contrast the present day situation (well the situation in Romania at the end of the 1990s) with 1945. An undetonated WW2 bomb, thought initially to be a US Tomahawk missile then raining down on Serbia, at the end of the Milosevic era, is contrasted with the ultimate liberation of Romania from evil Communist or Nazi Totalitarianism by the Americans.
‘California Dreamin’ is a worthwhile though flawed film which might have led to more interesting works but for the untimely death of Nemescu.
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