The poster, the credits and the promotional campaign for ‘Catane‘ (2025) insist on emphasizing the fact that it is a feature-length debut film. I don’t know exactly why the director and screenwriter Ioana Mischie, together with the producers, insist on this aspect. Maybe to emphasize the fact that the film had an extremely long gestation period, setting a kind of record, at least in Romanian cinema? The script, which was the filmmaker’s diploma work at Romanian Theatre and Film Art University in 2011, was refined and perfected in several creative workshops and festivals and has already generated at least two short films that I have identified in Ioana Mischie‘s filmography. In the meantime, she has made a name for herself in the creative introduction and exploitation of various digital techniques and virtual reality in film, video art and games. If this is an excuse for the quality of the film or for some possible visible clumsiness due to lack of experience, then that is really not the case. ‘Catane‘ is a mature film, which experiments with courage, which aims to say something and does it with aplomb and creativity. At one point, halfway through the film, I even had the impression that I was watching one of the most remarkable Romanian productions in recent years. My enthusiasm waned in the second part of the film, the main problem from my point of view being precisely that script that was so much worked and processed. Maybe too much.
The story is extracted from news broadcasts in recent decades by the Romanian media. In a remote village in the heart of the mountains, all the inhabitants receive social pensions for the most different kinds of disabilities. The situation contradicts all statistics and comes to the attention of the department in charge of pensions for people with disabilities in Bucharest. Almost everyone is on leave for various reasons, so the staff of the ministry’s inspection service themselves are forced to go to that village to check the situation on the spot. The team of bureaucrats is composed of a tyrannical boss, a long-legged young lady who undertakes – despite her lack of qualifications – the position of the unavailable physician, and a young, ambitious and servile intern. Arriving in the village located on a mountaintop in an idyllic landscape, the incompetence of the inspection team meets the cunning of the villagers guided by the mayor Pamfil. It would seem that the stratagem succeeds, but something always happens to ruin the best-laid plans. The ruthless inspectors will soften when they understand that the villagers had no other solution than to resort to deception in order to survive the negligence of successive governments. A love story between the female inspector and the one-legged (or maybe two-legged?) forester adds color to the whole situation.
‘Catane‘ is an aesthetic achievement. The music is composed by the Italian Emiliano Mazzenga and manages to synthesize Romanian folk sounds with elements of naive music that accompany and accentuate the rhythm of the action. The spectacular cinematography created by George Dascalescu uses the natural environment and combines the colors of the landscapes with sophisticated costumes. The props play an important role, some of them being authentic products of the local industry created by the villagers. The film starts off excellently. The three heroes from Bucharest arrive in a different world, with its own flow of time and laws, and as spectators we witness a combination of farce with magic, original and unique in Romanian films. Unfortunately, from a certain point onwards, the edifice begins to totter. The screenwriter seems to have not known how to resolve the conflict other than through a solution borrowed from classical Romanian comedies combined with a reconciliation and spiritual conversion of the ‘bad’ inspectors who are too little psychologically justified and seem forced. A helicopter also lands with the President (or maybe he is just a presidential candidate, it was not clear to me) who gives a filmed speech, but this scene seems inserted from another film. Part of the actors established names (Costel Cascaval, Iulia Lumânare), other are two screen veterans that I always enjoy watching (Mihai Mãlaimare, Mihai Dinvale) together with a team of amateur actors, residents of the village where the filming was done, excellently integrated. ‘Catane‘, in my opinion, missed the opportunity to have been a great film, but there are enough good reasons to go and watch it and I think many categories of viewers will like it. I am waiting for Ioana Mischie‘s next films and I just hope that 15 years will not pass between the script and the release on screens.