In 2005 I was preparing a short film with a friend of mine, Andrei Butica, a director of photography.
At some point, I told him a story I witnessed at one of my first “professional” shootings. I was supposed to film a teenager girl coming from a poor background. She was supposed to look happily at the camera and tell us how she sent in three juice bottle labels and won a car. The girl was not happy at all, on the contrary,she was feeling miserable because her parents decided that she should sell the car, so that they could pay some debts.
Andrei told me that this story could become a good film. Encouraged by him, I wrote together with Augustina Stanciu a 30 pages script. It wasn’t really working, the story was too hurried, so, little by little, we transformed it into a longer script.

Actually, I never knew for sure what’s this story about, what’s the meaning of it. I thought that it could be about many different things. About how the people think about what’s good for them. About compromises and lies. About the language of film being used in order to cheat. About being a scared teenager and not having the guts to fight your parents to the end. About what it is to be a parent who must take profit of his/her own child in order to fulfill the future plans. About happiness, sadness and consume.  About capitalism. About the way sun goes down in University Square during the summer.

Seeing the film completed, I don’t know how many of the above mentioned remained. I don’t know whether the film is good or bad. I don’t have nor the skill, neither the distance to realize it. And, fortunately, it’s not my business to do it. I only hope that whoever will see the film will find in it something meaningful and emotional.