Mihai Mcan speaks Venetian film ‘Milky teeth’ inspired by daughter

Romanian movie Mihai Mincani returned to Venice Film FestivalHorizons Competition with “Milk teeth“Deep personal drama set during the last days of Nicola Ceaušescu dictatorship.

The film marks Munich’s choice of Venetian in Venetium after his part 2022. years “north”. Next will be played on Toronto International Film Festival. Variety It is solely debating the movie trailer.

In Romania in 1989. year, “Milky teeth” follows a 10-year-old Mary, because he becomes the last witness of mysterious disappearance in his sister in a small, isolated city. The story explores how a child treats the trauma and loss from the background of the political system collapse.

For Mincan, the project is also the departure of and the continuation of its cinematographic travel. “I wanted this really free approach,” says the director VarietyDescribing that he left his carefully planned recording style “in the north” in the north. “We had a list of shots, but we basically quit it pretty quickly after a few days of shooting.”

Access to access is partially practical and partially philosophical. Working with children’s actors, Mincan knew that “he didn’t want a lot of” a lot. “Instead, as well as much freedom to act and move the camera as well, and the camera must be tracked, not the other way around.

The story is strongly attracted from Mincan’s childhood experience. “I was the same age as … I mean, I really, I know how it smelled, I know how it smelled, though Mincan rejected most of the elements, except for one chasing picture:” The girl who disappears with the bin leaves in the trash. ”

That image is resonated in person. “It’s such a familiar image to yourself. My parents sent me in the same way, you know, with the bucket through the blocks of apartments to the garbage.”

But a deeper film inspiration comes from Mincan’s own daughter, which “had two or three years in which she discovered that it was really hard to connect with the world.” This personal experience led him to create a “story about a girl who is constantly living in the box. So the world is always there in the background, but the connection with that world is sometimes very difficult.”

The narrative approach intentionally maintains the children’s perspective throughout, creating what Mincanes calls a “fragmented narrative”. He explains: “If you enter the child’s perspective, stay there. And that means, creative, it is almost shocking, because it should basically become all the narrative process somehow becomes very fragmented.”

The film, which contains Emma Ioana Mogos, Marina Palii, Igor Babiac and Istvan Teglas is structured in two different deeds. The first half follows the immediate after disappearance, while others would “be like going in mind in mind, completely in mind of the child.” Mincan Notes that this last section “The part I’m most proud of movie”.

Despite the adjustment of Perida, Mincan believes that the topics remain relevant. “Romania has not changed much since then,” notices. “There is one thing in the movie, and also in real life today has not changed the silence of the system … this country was built wrong.”

When the editing started, Mincan and his editor worked under a simple but powerful directive written on a big paper: “This is a film about loneliness.”

The production itself was international cooperation, including partners from Romania, France, Denmark, Greece and Bulgaria. “Milky teeth” were produced by defilm (Romania), in co-production with films (France), Strom Pictures (Denmark), Studiobauhaus (Greece) and screening emotions (Bulgaria). The project participated in Turinofilmlab 2023, where he also received a prize for production and green image.

Cercamon is a world sales handling on “dairy teeth”.

Watch the trailer here: