One Step Behind the Seraphim – NEW SHOW! | MakingWaves

One Step Behind the Seraphim – NEW SHOW!

Original title:

Daniel Sandu. 2017, Romania, 147 min

Original title: Un pas în urma serafimilor
Directed by Daniel Sandu
2017. 147m. Romania. Romanian with subtitles. NR.
New York Premiere
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“One Step Behind the Seraphim offers that instant satisfaction of knowing you’re watching a talented novice director and cinematographer who’ve learned their craft and understand what to do with it.” (Variety)

A 15-year-old who wants to become a priest is admitted to a Romanian Orthodox seminary, only to realize that the system is totally rotten. Trying to fit in but eventually caught in a power struggle between a two-faced priest (the ever excellent Vlad Ivanov, also seen in Dogs and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) and a crooked secular teacher, the student-turned-rebel learns that lying, cheating, and betraying are the tools he has to acquire in order to survive the abusive institution. Inspired by first-time director Daniel Sandu’s experience in a similar seminary, this is a captivating coming-of-age movie of epic proportions with an ambivalent religious twist.

Screenplay: Daniel Sandu
Director of Photography: George Dăscălescu
Cast: Ştefan Iancu, Vlad Ivanov, Ali Amir, Alfred Wegeman
Production: Hi Film Productions
Festivals: 2018 Sofia

Critics’ Corner

Cine-File: A new review of Nae Caranfil`s film (available online)

"DO NOT LEAN OUT THE WINDOW is a boisterous film that looks at the seismic shift in Romanian society with the cautious joy of a caged animal set free. It is a crucial precursor to the revelatory Romanian New Wave that should not be missed."

NY Times: Film Series to Catch in N.Y.C.

"In Romania, the democratic reforms that followed the execution of Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989 also turned the country into a global filmmaking powerhouse, culminating in what has been called the Romanian New Wave."

NYRB: J. Hoberman recommends

"These thirty films also include some of the best made anywhere during the past three decades."

MW public – Andrei Codrescu: “In Praise of New Romanian Film”

The New Wave festival returns to New York every year with astonishing new films, alongside a well-curated archive. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

J.B. Spins: “Luxury Hotel” – For fans of dystopian social satire

"Luxury Hotel could have probably only been produced during the immediate post-Ceausescu aftermath, when the palace was available, in all its faded grandeur. It is definitely spectacle, but serious, distinctively pointed spectacle."

Screenslate: “The Autobiography of N. Ceaușescu”- conceived as a flashback

"And now it is our turn, all these decades later, to be the ones to look and learn."

J.B. Spins: “The Oak” – Deeply compelling cinema

"The Oak is a defiantly bold, chaotically head-spinning indictment of Ceausescu Socialism, but it is also deeply compelling cinema. This is definitely auteurist cinema from Pintilie that still connects on a profoundly human level."

The Criterion Collection: Romanians… in America

"Film Forum will be showcasing thirty Romanian films made during the thirty years since the overthrow and execution of iron-fisted dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu."

„The Romanian New Wave shows no signs of waning, with steady input from such directors as Corneliu Porumboiu, Cristi Puiu, and Cristian Mungiu."

„The former communist country has emerged as a powerhouse of cinema over the last two decades and much has been made about the Romanian New Wave, a genre of naturalistic and unflinching films that have been consistently winning top prizes such as the Palme d’Or in Cannes and awards at the Berlin and Venice festivals.”

The New York Times

„In the last decade, the emergence of a Romanian new wave has been one of the most startling developments in world cinema, with one film after another winning prizes at Cannes and elsewhere.”

The Wall Street Journal

"Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema, the annual weeklong survey that has helped define and establish the southeastern European country as a stronghold of socially incisive, independently minded personal cinema.”

The Wall Street Journal

„Romania cinema has gradually become a central component of international film culture."