The Chalice. Of Sons and Daughters | MakingWaves

The Chalice. Of Sons and Daughters

Original title: O tahtai. Șavendar tai șeiandar

Cătălina Tesăr, Dana Bunescu. 2022, Romania, 85 min

U.S. AVANT-PREMIERE

Q&A with Dana Bunescu on March 30

Romania’s most esteemed editor and sound designer Bunescu and expert anthropologist Tesăr join forces in chronicling the fascinating universe of the traditional Roma community called ‘cortorari’ and their convoluted marriage rituals. The wedding alliance revolves around the family heirloom, the eponymous silver cup serving as clan emblem and status symbol. Although the bride’s family ought to pay a cash dowry to the groom’s parents, there’s a catch: the bride’s father gets to keep the groom’s chalice until the young couple succeeds in having a baby boy. What follows is the engaging endeavor of one such couple to birth a son, complete with the simmering feud between their families, in this raw and revealing documentary about how generations old customs may shape new destinies.

Part of the 17th Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema

Directed by Cătălina Tesăr, Dana Bunescu
Screenwriter: Cătălina Tesăr
Director of photography: Cătălina Tesăr, Cătălin Mușat, Ileana Szasz
Editors: Dana Bunescu, Ciprian Cimpoi
Producer: Cătălina Tesăr. Co-producer: Dana Bunescu
Romanian title: Pocalul. Despre fii și fiice
Festivals: Sarajevo Film Festival – Official selection, ASTRA Film Festival – Best Romanian Documentary Award
In Romani and Romanian with English subtitles. NR

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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."