A Small Insignificant Love (film)

Experimental documentary
81 min
2020

A former TV actress revisits the characters and actors that she co-starred in the popular Romanian soap-opera „Forbidden Love“, years after the show was aired. The amateur actors relive the shared experience on the set, going through the stories, the betrayal and the madness that made up their lives on screen. While they reflect upon their roles as part of a love triangle gone mad, the absurdities of fictional reality-tv become more and more visible. Were they just instruments in a plot written by an invisible hand or did they manage to create a humane story by their own modest means?

Larisa Crunțeanu mixes the original footage with interviews and new fictional sequences that continue and exhaust the original narrative, pushing the limits of documentary film towards new performative and experimental territories. The roles of The Cheating Lover, The Cheated Lover, The Cheating Father and The Mistress of Both the Father and the Lover become empty receptacles ready to be filled with clichés. Television has invaded their souls and educated them: how to talk, how to confess, how to love, how to cheat, how to display emotion in front of a camera.

International premiere and Winner of Best Director Award – REAKTOR FILM FESTIVAL 2020
National premiere – Les Films de Cannes a Bucharest 2021

Producers
Copia Originala & microfilm

Project realized with the support of:
Romanian Cultural Institute – CentenArt programme
AFCN – the Administration of the National Cultural Fund

CAST
Larisa Crunțeanu (as herself & Petronela Mirea)
Ionuț Grancea (as himself & Răzvan)
Vasile Nistor (as himself & Valeriu Mirea)
Ioana Andrei (as herself & Mariana)
Alexandru Dan (driver)

CREW
Script and directing Larisa Crunțeanu
DoP Iulian Stanciu & Alexandru Dan
Editing Cătălin Cristuțiu
Boom Laurențiu Gligor
Sound design Laurențiu Coțac
Soundmix Avanpost

Producers Larisa Crunțeanu, Ada Solomon