Films We Like presents
METRONOM
A Film By Alexandru Belc
2022 Cannes Film Festival
Un Certain Regard – Best Directing Prize
Opens TIFF Bell Lightbox on Friday, February 24, 2023
Friday, February 4, 2023 - Romanian director Alexandru Belc’s first fiction feature is a provocative spin on teenage love, music, freedom and the oppressive nature of ordinary life in 1970’s Romania.
Bucharest, 1972. Ana, 17, dreams of love and freedom. One night, while partying with her friends, they decide to send a letter to Metronom, the musical program which Radio Free Europe broadcasts clandestinely in Romania. It is then that the Securitate, Ceausescu’s secret police arrives.
Newcomer Mara Bugarin as Ana is magnetic in Belcs’ subtle yet powerful drama that speaks volumes about the nature of betrayal, forgiveness and the power of fear.
Director’s Statement – Genesis
Metronom started several years ago as a documentary about the seventies in Romania and especially about Metronom, the radio show clandestinely broadcast by Radio Free Europe, animated by the Romanian radio journalist and producer Cornel Chiriac from exile, who was assassinated in Munich in 1975. My research was a personal foray into adolescence and into the teenager’s life in Romania at that time, the time of my parents’ youth…
… My initial goal of making a documentary film about the music and teenagers in the communist Romania turned into a love story, a coming-o- age drama, a story about deception, betrayal, and forgiveness.
About Alexandru Belc
Alexandru Belc was born in 1980 in Romania. He graduated from the Bucharest Film School in 2007 and obtained a master’s degree in political sciences in 2012. During his studies, he made several short films and documentaries. He then worked as an Assistant Director for Corneliu Porumboiu and Cristian Mungiu. He worked as script supervisor on Cristian Mungiu’s 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 1 DAY (Palme d’Or in 2007). His first feature documentary, MARCH 8th, about women in the workplace, screened in numerous international festivals in 2013. His second feature documentary, CINEMA MY LOVE, a portrait of a Romanian art-house exhibitor, was distributed by Outplay Films in France and released in theaters in May 2017. METRONOM, his first fiction film, is in the Official Selection Un Certain Regard at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
About Films We Like
Founded by award-winning documentary filmmaker Ron Mann (Grass, Comic Book Confidential, Carmine Street Guitars) Films We Like is a boutique distributor of documentary, independent, and international films in Canada. Recent releases include Anonymous Club, The Passengers of the Night, Montana Story, EO and Saint Omer.
-30-
2022 Romania/France
102 minutes
In Romanian with English and French subtitles
Hi-res photos, press notes, poster are available:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1SxXSXo7sFVwtfQuVETRylGo4-oWIdgdM
Media contact
Virginia Kelly