Radu jude biography of mahatma
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That said, traces of The Happiest Girl in the World surface in Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World and Uppercase Print. This Wallachia-set ‘eastern western’ established many of Jude’s presiding themes, and, as his first period piece, sowed the seeds for many of the historical details which would crop up in his later portraits of contemporary Romania.
A constable (Teodor Corban) and his son (Mihai Comanoiu) ride out on horseback at the behest of a boyar to track down an escaped Roma slave (Cuzin Toma).
His feature film Toată lumea din familia noastră (2012) premiered at the Berlinale Forum and received the Heart of Sarajevo Award and the Bayard d'Or in Namur, among other awards.
Scarred Hearts (Inimi Cicatrizate), dir.
From his early works until today, Jude’s thought-provoking work, exploring the fragile and tensed space between past and present, fact and fiction, has been some of the most essential of the Romanian New Wave – a movement recognized in the mid-2000s and characterized by austere and realist approaches to social and political realities blended with brazen black humour.
Formally innovative, Jude’s work is essential in deconstructing the eventful recent past of Romania, marked by the 1989 Revolution that freed its people from an authoritative regime.
Aferim is the Ottoman Turkish word for ‘bravo’, and it is this unwarranted self-adulation which underpins this caustic tale of corruption and the handing down of history.
Marking a turning point in his career, Aferim!
Where to begin with Radu Jude
Why this might not seem so easy
In a career spanning scarcely more than two decades, Radu Jude has become one of Romania’s most provocative and prolific auteurs.
He worked as an assistant director for feature films like Amen, directed by Costa-Gavras or Moartea domnului Lazarescu, directed by Cristi Puiu. To date, he has directed 10 solo feature films, numerous short films, more than 100 commercials, plus a television series – and his output is only accelerating.
Jude is a fledgling of the Romanian New Wave (alongside Cristian Mungiu, Corneliu Porumboiu, Adina Pintilie and others), a group of filmmakers who seized the international spotlight in the 2000s as Romanian cinema – previously all but ignored – gained ground in the post-communist era.
Radu Jude, Romania / Germany 2016, Romanian with English subtitles
Widely recognized as one of the most influential filmmakers working today, Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude developed throughout the years a highly distinctive positioning within contemporary cinema. (2015) is still the ideal entry point. He directed several short films, among them Corp la corp (2003), Marea Neagră (2004), Lampa cu căciulă (2006) – the most awarded Romanian short film of all times, winner of grand prizes at Sundance, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Grimstad, Hamburg, Bilbao, Huesca, Trieste, Montpellier, Cottbus, Aspen, IndieLisboa, Brussels, Mediawave, Kraków, Almería, Valencia, Uppsala and selected, among others, at Toronto, Telluride, New Directors/NewFilms, Tampere, Rotterdam, Dimineața (2007), Alexandra (2007) – selected in over 30 festivals, including Clermont-Ferrand, San Francisco, Cottbus or Oberhausen (where he won the Grand Prix).
The film notoriously opens with said video, starring porn actor Stefan Steel. The first to do this was the brilliantly meta I Do Not Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians (2018). He was assistant director on Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr Lazarescu (2005), the film credited with cementing Romanian film’s new global standing.
While Jude shares a corrosively black humour with his contemporaries, he has carved out a distinctively rule-flouting style.
Blending sharp, unflinching criticism towards the darker side of his country’s past with mockery and irony, his body of work represents among the most politically acute as well as the most formally innovative ones in contemporary cinema.
Radu Jude’s work has been widely recognized across major international festival, winning awards at Karlovy Vary (I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians), Locarno Film Festival (Scarred Hearts), Sundance Film Festival and his most recent Golden Bear Award for Best Film at the Berlinale for his latest Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn.
Jude also directed about 100 advertising commercials.
Cea mai fericită fată din lume represents his debut in feature films. One of Jude’s main traits, though, is that despite the topical severity of his dramas they are above all uproariously funny – wielding a bawdy, always ironic sense of humour and an unapologetic tendency to shock.
The best place to start – Aferim!
Although an outlier among Radu Jude films, Aferim!
The film was selected in ACID Programme at 2009 Cannes Film Festival.
In 2011, he directed and produced the independent Film pentru prieteni. Corban excels as the loquacious law-enforcer, veering between repulsively racist and sexist remarks and almost beautifully poetic aphorisms. is perhaps Jude’s most gargantuan production to date, setting out with a budget of over a million dollars.