• SYNOPSIS
• PHOTOS
• DIRECTOR'S NOTE
• FESTIVALS
• TECHNICAL SHEET
• PRESS KIT

• A love story between a man, a woman and his violin through the past and the present. It's a common story about life, death, passion and transmission. A cinematographic essay at the border of fiction and documentary.

  Through the lives of Gheorghe and Sorina, Trio is more than a documentary. It is a poetic journey through contemporary Romania, a political reflection 30 years after the fall of communism, a reflection on being a Roma in Europe today, a film about social violence, but also a film about happiness, love and acceptance of others in their alterity.

  Trio is an ode to music. Gheorghe’s violin punctuates each sequence, moving from the most dramatic chords to the most joyous notes.
  But above all, Trio is a film that is there to take us on a journey that is both aesthetic and raw.
• My first contact with Gheorghe was through music. I heard him before I saw him. The music played was Ciprian Porumbescu’s Ballade. Much later, at the end of the shoot, I found out by chance that Ciprian Porumbescu died on 6 June, while Gheorghe was born on 6 June. Life spins its web from the threads of chance. From this music I decided to make a film. The score is made up of selected moments from Gheorghe’s life. Some were written long before we met, others were written together.
  Trio is not a documentary. Nor is it fiction. We’re in a separate sphere that comes under the heading of film essay, in other words, films that stand on the borders of the two genres.
  The initial idea may seem simple: the life of a violinist of Roma origin.
  Several documentaries have been made about gypsy music and its folklore. I didn’t want to work in that way. I wasn’t interested in the traditional or folkloric side of things. Nor was it the documentary aspect in the strict sense.

  The film

  I first discovered Gheorghe’s music before discovering him and his wife. His violin touched me first. Then, bit by bit, I got to know Gheorghe and his family. Behind the violin and his violinist I discovered a love story, both sad and beautiful, with Sorina, his wife. From a duet, the man and his violin, I moved into a trio with a man, a woman and a violin between them. I couldn’t see myself writing this story in a conventional setting.
  I didn’t want any interviews and I wasn’t interested in making a film about their lives. I wanted to capture the banality of their daily lives, their lives and their love, to open a window to the outside world to observe their intertwined destinies and to offer the viewer what I first glimpsed when I heard Gheorghe play.

  References

  In designing the film, I also made a series of cinematic references. The pig’s throat being slit to classical music is a reference to Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange in the «flat block Marina» scene. The pig’s fall from the car boot is a reference to the dog’s fall from the car boot in Haneke’s Funny Games. Haneke’s fictional movement is identical to the real movement of the pig’s falling body. The violence of the animal’s death puts the struggle for survival into perspective. This is the preamble to the final scene. Two forms of violence rub shoulders and clash. The sea scene, on the other hand, is closer to Lelouch’s Un homme et une femme and Kusturica’s Black Cat, White Cat. My direction draws its roots from fictional cinema and adapts it to the real world.

  Film Device

  Gheorghe and Sorina are those who can be described as invisible in the eyes of society. This is one of the reasons I set up a filmic device. The film was shot at 60 frames per second, giving each shot a different rhythm. It’s also, and above all, about taking the time to make the invisible visible.
• Cinemed (Montpellier, France)

• Director: Ana Dumitrescu
  Cinematography: Ana Dumitrescu
  Sound: Jonathan Boissay
  Editing: Ana Dumitrescu
  Sound Editing: Jonathan Boissay
  Sound mix: Mathieu Nappez
  Cast: Gheorghe Costache, Sorina Costache, the Violin
  
  Production: Jules et Films
  In co-production L'Alhambra Studios - Cristal Groupe
  Romania • 2017 • 82 min • Black and White • Scope 2:35 • DCP 2K
  Sound 5.1 Romanian • French / English subtitles availables
  French distribution: BarProd

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