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Illegitimate Ilegitim

Adrian Sitaru / Romania / 2016 / 89 min / Romanian

Being denied state funding for its controversial examination of the issues of abortion and incest, the daring Romanian film was made on a shoestring budget as an acting improvisation.

Sitting at the dinner table with his four grown-up children and their partners, widower Victor relishes his role as a family patriarch. One dinnertime his son Cosma confronts him with the fact that his name has shown up in historical documents which indicate he denounced women wanting to flaunt the abortion ban in place until 1989. The mood abruptly shifts. Victor defends himself by pointing out that he is, after all, against abortion and that twins Sasha and Romi owe their very lives to this fact – their mother wanted to abort them. Yet when Sasha announces she is pregnant, Victor’s convictions are put to a true test.

"People told me they liked the film, that it is like jazz music. Before daring to be a filmmaker I was a musician and I played jazz. It’s the same way of creating. Just as you play with some good musicians, you are improvising and sometimes at the end it is beautiful, but you never know when the song will end. From a certain point, you are realising how to continue and it is second by second and it was a bit like this when we created this film." (Adrian Sitaru)

Adrian Sitaru
Born in Deva, Romania in 1971. After studying computer science he completed studies in film and TV directing in 2003 at the University of Bucharest. First making TV- and short films, Sitaru released Hooked, his debut feature film, in 2008. His second feature film, Best Intentions, received the Best Director Award at the 2011 Locarno Film Festival.

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