Three Days in September, the latest film from veteran Romanian director and producer Tudor Giurgiu (Freedom), tells the story of a picture-perfect wedding that goes awry when the groom’s mistress crashes the celebrations, leaving the bride in dire straits and on her way to eventual redemption.
This film marks the opening of the 25th Transylvania International Airport. Andrea Vasile will play the role of Bianca at the festival. A 40-year-old bride whose engagement to Victor (Emilian Oprea) is upended by the revelation that she has been sleeping with a co-worker. With not only her wedding but also her future plans in jeopardy, Bianca flees the scene and soon finds herself caught up in a hilarious nocturnal journey of souls through a faded resort town.
Featuring dry humor and biting comedy, and built around a bold 65-minute single take, 3 Days in September is a departure for Giorgiu, who is also TIFF founder and chairman.
His last film, the documentary drama Spruce Wood, released last year, was based on the massacre of up to 200 civilians by Soviet border troops attempting to enter Romania in 1941. His previous work of fiction, Freedom (2023), was a tense dramatic thriller set during the 1989 Romanian Revolution and depicting an armed conflict following an attack on a police station. (Between these two films, he made Nasty, a free-spirited documentary about 70s Romanian tennis bad boy Ilie Nastase, which premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.)
After such heavy themes, Giorgiu was, by his own admission, ready to change his tune, but says he was “strongly motivated” to go in a different direction after hearing words from his harshest critic, his eldest son.
“‘We all know you’re just interested in communism and history,'” the director recalls telling the 19-year-old. “‘Gen Z wants something different. Give me something different.'”
However, it turns out that it is difficult to understand what that “something” is. For some time, Giorgiu had been toying with the idea of a film about a disastrous wedding where “everything falls apart and goes wrong.” He was also inspired by his compatriot Radu Jude, a prolific provocateur who tirelessly experimented with themes and formats. His recent feature, Continental ’25, was shot entirely on iPhones, working at a breakneck pace and on a budget that would make the average arthouse filmmaker cringe.
“These movies are really fun to shoot in a short amount of time, and then you can move on to other projects,” Giorgiu says. “And I thought, ‘Why not? Let’s do something with this spirit in mind.'”
Around the same time, a friend called Gyurgiu and suggested that he shoot his next film at a hotel his friend had recently opened in the Black Sea resort of Eforie Sud. Not only did Giorgiu jump at the idea of filming there, but he also saw it as an “opportunity to work with new people” and proposed a collaboration in which key creators, from directors and directors to production supervisors and costume designers, had never worked together before. Thus, Arome Film Creative Camp was born.
Tudor Giorgi, director, producer and founder of the Transylvania Film Festival
Provided by: Transylvania Film Festival
The production schedule was tight, with filming taking place over one frenetic week last September. There was just one problem. “We had a concept, but no story,” Giorgiu says.
He credits Transylvania Film Festival artistic director Mihai Chirilov with “finding the right canvas, the right story structure” for 3 Days in September. Emphasizing that it is impossible to shoot and edit an entire feature in a week, he proposed a film built around one-take centerpieces, inspired by Chilean filmmaker Matias Bize’s 2003 drama “Saturday.”
After receiving Bizet’s blessing, Georges and his collaborators got to work, finishing the script in a month and making regular trips to the south of Eforie to plan Bianca’s journey through the seaside towns. According to Giorgiu, the extended scenes that make up the majority of the film required “a lot of choreography” from both cast and crew. “Besides your craft and working with the Department of Defense, we had to do a lot of preparation with the actors,” he says. “We didn’t improvise. Everything had to happen like clockwork.”
This included the performance of lead actress Vasil, who is also the director’s wife, a fact that Georges says helped the duo overcome the demanding one-take scenes.
“The acting had to be very precise,” he says. “We talked a lot, and she was very stressed. But if she didn’t have that tension and carry the emotion throughout the 65-minute single take, otherwise it would have been just a technical achievement. It has to have meaning, and this kind of emotion has to be conveyed by the actors.”
“3 Days in September” arrived in Cluj after its world premiere at an international film festival. Rotterdam Film Festival. The screenplay was written by Giorgiu, Konrad Mericoffer, and Radu Grigore, and produced by Giorgiu and Mirel Oral for Point Film. Cinematography was handled for the first time by DoP Alexandre Drobanche, and the cast included stars Vasil and Oprea, as well as Konrad Melikofer, Adela Popescu, and Mirela Zesha.
Giurgiu’s next project will be a documentary about legendary Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, which will reunite him with the creative team behind Nasty. He is also producing a historical drama about the unknown life of Dumitru “Trixie” Cecais, a man he calls “Romanian Nijinsky.” He was a leading figure in Romania’s ballet scene in the 1940s, but was later imprisoned by the communist authorities.
Director Giurgiu said that while the film tells the story of the dancer’s life, it also “reflects the destiny of the country,” adding: “It is primarily a story about identity, set against the backdrop of a very complex period in Romania’s history.”
The Transylvania International Airport Film Festival will be held from June 12th to 21st.
