British-Romanian director Rachel Tapaljian likes to quote George Bernard Shaw when talking about her debut film, Something Familiar. The playwright of “Pygmalion” said, “If you can’t get rid of the skeletons in your closet, you might as well take them out and teach them to dance.”
The film, which premiered this week in main competition at Copenhagen’s documentary festival CPH:DOX, follows Tapaljian as he helps Mihaela, adopted from the same Romanian orphanage as the director, find her birth mother, before Taparjian embarks on a search for her siblings herself.
“This film is about hope and overcoming adversity and trauma,” Tapaljian tells Variety, adding that it focuses on universal themes of identity and belonging.
Mihaela grew up on a farm in Manitoba, Canada, and now lives in North Carolina, while Tapaljian, a university lecturer and qualified social worker, lives in the northeast of England.
Rachel Tapaljian, director and protagonist of Something Familiar
Provided by Manifest Film
“Mihaela and I started this journey not knowing what we would find, but we were motivated to find out who we were, where we came from, and some of the reasons why we ended up in an orphanage in Romania,” says Tapaljian.
The seeds for this project were sown about six years ago when Tapaljian received an email from Mihaela out of the blue. “It was something along the lines of, ‘You don’t know me, but we were adopted from the same orphanage at the same time. I want to go back to Romania. Can you help me?'” Tapaljian recalled.
“I ignored her for a while because I had just come back from Romania and I wasn’t at all ready to tackle the process, but eventually I contacted her again and said, ‘Sure, I’m ready. I’ll help you.’
“Something familiar”
Provided by Manifest Film
“She wanted to go to an orphanage, and I said, ‘Why don’t we find your mom?'” And that became another focus we had together. So, yeah, she was ready. She wanted to embark on this journey long before I did. ”
Tapalcan added that the portrayal of Romania and its people in the media has been unintentionally “very judgmental”, but that her film will convey a different perspective on the country’s history. Tapaljian says Mihaela and the fact that she is an insider telling this story is very interesting, citing the phrase, “Without us, there is nothing about us.” Because[during the film]we learn things just like the audience, and our existing narratives are subverted along with the audience’s.
A key moment in the film is when they visit the orphanage in Romania where they were placed before being adopted. “People talk about embodied memory, and I was cognitively aware of it and was interested in it, but I had never really felt it,” says Tapaljian. “And lo and behold, when we arrived at that orphanage, something happened to both of us.”
Rachel Tapaljian “Something Familiar”
Provided by Manifest Film
Explaining what he means by “embodied memory,” Tapaljian says, “I think the closest thing we talk about is déjà vu. It’s like, ‘I’ve been here before,’ or ‘Something happened here before.'”
“I felt very, very emotional in that room in that orphanage. But I didn’t expect to feel that way. I later learned that that’s where the children were locked up – that room. Now, what was going on there? I don’t know. I can’t prove it. There’s no science behind it. I just know that I was overwhelmed by something. I was in that room when I was a baby, even as an adult. And there are other moments like that.” Well, it’s like you have a memory in your body, beneath your conscious memory, beneath your conscious thoughts. ”
To understand the social and political context in which biological mothers placed their daughters in orphanages, Tapardian “uncovers[communist Romania’s]birtherist policies and reveals how they actually affected women,” she says. Tapaljian wanted to show that their biological mothers “weren’t the cold, emotionless people you tend to see in Eastern Europe. That’s not the case. They were subjugated, which meant that their bodily autonomy was so limited. I never understood the extent of that.”
According to Human Rights Watch, Romania has a difficult history regarding sexual and reproductive health rights. In 1966, the then government adopted Decree No. 770, which strictly prohibited access to contraception and abortion in the name of promoting population growth.
The fact that Tapaljan and Mihaela come from the same orphanage and were born at exactly the same time adds a twist to the story. “I didn’t realize the complexity of it and the fact that my parents chose me over her until I made this film. I didn’t know it was like a sliding door.”
Director Tapaljian says the film’s turning point comes when “Mihaela learns something from the family that we managed to find, and that causes her to completely rebuild her identity and her existence. What she knew and what she knows now is completely turned upside down.”
When it came to telling her story, Tapaljian faced a dilemma. “I didn’t get to see my mom because I found out that she had passed away. So how do you do that? How do you talk to the dead? Does film and filmmaking offer a way to do that? Well, in a way, or so it was for me. So, using elements of fiction…even wanting to say elements of fiction? But by working with actresses and different devices, we were able to speak to some kind of mother, or bring back the idea of a mother. But maybe the mother archetype is really present in this film, even though we haven’t met our real mothers, so we really thought about how to change the story in that sense.”
However, Tapaljan has a connection with his brothers in the film. “I think what I discover about my brothers is probably the biggest development of the film, knowing what they went through. And I think the final development is how similar my own life trajectory is to theirs, especially my sisters. We know each other. It was a little creepy because we didn’t grow up together. We didn’t really have similar types of adversity and trauma. So where does that come from? The nature vs. nurture argument is very much alive throughout the movie. ”
The film’s title, “Something Familiar,” reflects the film’s theme of “toying with the creepy and macabre that no one can fully explain.” The title also refers to “looking for the familiar in the faces of family members that we manage to find, because that’s an obsession that every adopted person has. I mean, it may sound really superficial, but it’s a big deal. And we look for the familiar in what we find, and that familiar finds us in what we can’t explain,” says Tapaljian.
Making films changed Tapaljan for the better. Citing the show Teach the Skeletons in the Closet to Dance, she says, “There’s always uncertainty in documentaries. But you have to dance with uncertainty. We’re exposing all these truths. And what happens after that? How does it affect all of us?”
“And for me, I started reaching out to brothers that I didn’t know before, and I went on this journey. I think part of it was cathartic for me. I hesitate to say it’s therapeutic, because I have a therapist, and it’s only therapeutic. And certainly catharsis and creativity can alchemize trauma in a way that therapy doesn’t necessarily do. I think the creative process has given me things that I couldn’t have gotten in individual therapy.”
Her adoptive parents were initially supportive of the project, but they are no longer in touch. “They don’t want to have any contact with me and haven’t had any contact with me for about two-and-a-half years, which means there’s also a loss in film production,” she says. “Early on, four-and-a-half, five years ago, I did some interviews with them, and they chipped in with that as well, which was nice. They wanted to convey their perspective and their memories of the place and what it meant to them. It was very important that their stories were included in this film because their decision to adopt was… Because it was prompted by the fact that my own daughter died suddenly when she was 14 years old. And all of the choices Mihaela and I made were… those decisions. I think it all traces back to the unresolved traumatic loss of grief and loss and how that led to the family breakdown between me and them.”
Tapaljian’s background in social work and academic research in trauma overcoming influenced the way she approached film. “I’d like to think that by taking a trauma-informed approach to filmmaking, we’re reflecting that. I’d like to think so. I mean, we have to ask other people in the film if they feel that way. But just as we’re really concerned about the ethics and the safety of the people in the film. I mean, especially for my sister Anna. She really wanted to tell her story. There’s a real vulnerability in Anna. She’s probably been through more than anyone else.”I hope that influenced my approach to making the film, in terms of the level of adversity and trauma that was put into her whole involvement, the preparation was in place, and the fact that we had a therapist on set throughout the shoot. It’s over. ”
Producers are Monica Razlian Gogan and Elena Martín of Romania’s Manifesto Film. Co-producers are Alexandra Bilic of My Accomplice and Dermot O’Dempsey of Shudder Films UK. Worldwide sales will be handled by Tijana Dzukic of Stranger Film Sales.
