AMERICA, HERE WE COME! (2014) – comedy feature film

Director: Răzvan Săvescu
Scriptwriters: Oana Ioachim, Răzvan Săvescu
Cast: Gheorghe Ifrim, Adrian Văncică, Mihai Călin, Ion Sapdaru, Tania Popa, Ioana Blaj, Oana Ioachim, Alexandru Bindea, Ștefan Giurgiu, Marius Chivu, Mira Furlan
Produced by: Tudor Giurgiu, Oana Giurgiu, Jonathan Whittaker
Cinematography by: Liviu Mărghidan
Film editing by: Tudor Pojoni
Sound: Alexandru Dragomir, Zsemlye
Music: Marius Mihalache
Year: 2014
Category: feature
Genre: comedy
Subtitles: English

11,959 – Cinepub viewers

PLOT SUMMARY

Coming all the way from the little town of Târgovişte five actors, the director and a little child with his huge teddy bear are crossing the ocean to perform in New York. Not everything goes according to plan though, and the actors decide, for some extra money, to start working with a local agent, also Romanian and settled in US for some time, who promises them a major tour. Will their misadventures come to an end or are they just beginning?

FESTIVALS:

• 2015 – Gopo Awards, Romania – Nominated for Best Debut Film
• 2014 – TIFF, Romania

Critical reviews:

“He knows very well the actor’s psychology and the rhythm of a sequence.” – Tudor Giurgiu on director Răzvan Săvescu

“‘America, Here We Come!’ is a comic and musical roadmovie about a group of actors from Târgoviște who go to play I.L Caragiale in New York, but end up being exploited on tour by a romanian impresario who also owns a Romanian restaurant. Beyond the fact that the restaurant really exists in NY, we were told at the press conference that many things in the movie are real.” – Iulia Blaga, suplimentulduldecultura.ro

“‘America, Here We Come!’ doesn’t aim for more than what it can offer: a pleasant entertainment starting from a Billy Wilder movie premise – a troupe of actors from the Romanian suburbs get to try their luck in New York and among the Romanian communities in the US. A good opportunity for cultural and civilizational clashes.” – Ionuț Mareș, ziarulmetropolis.ro

“Although it is inspired by simple overseas comedies, ‘America, Here We Come!’ manages to acclimatize this pattern, giving it, on an American background, a colorful Romanian touch. One that doesn’t sound fake, despite its glossy appearance. And this works best in dialog.” – Ionuț Mareș, ziarulmetropolis.ro

“The comical situations are well crafted, and Răzvan Săvescu pushes the right buttons to get the audience’s buy-in. But the movie relies first and foremost on the cast, from which the ease shown by Adrian Văncică, Gheorghe Ifrim and Tania Popa, remarkable comedy actors, stands out. The other central actors – Mihai Călin, Ion Sapdaru, Ioana Blaj and Alexandru Bindea – also seem to be well suited to their roles.” – Ionuț Mareș, ziarulmetropolis.ro

“I don’t know where and how we lost our sense of humor, but I do know that we are all trying to find it. That’s what Răzvan Săvescu is trying to do in ‘America, Here We Come!’ – to recover the sense of humor of the Middle Eastern cinema. There have been entertaining movies with Romanians in America before, the whole series of westerns with the people from the 70s and 80s proves that the American myth can be a source of entertainment.” – Doru Pop, www.clujulcultural.ro

“The great opportunity to star in the States, another important driver of movie convention, is and isn’t there, because everything is relative from the start. The movie cliché: “savages come to civilization” doesn’t, in the case of “America, Here We Come!” offer even the vivacity of the usual crutches. The fun seems centered on the observation: Romanians in the United States, and that seems to be enough for a segment of viewers thirstily seeking such a thing.” – Emil Vasilache, cinepub.ro

“America, Here We Come!” is so ill-suited to the fundamental mirages of the commercial movie (selling a plausible, flawless illusion) that it unwittingly traces an existential burnout. The characters are caught up in an archetypical American dream, they try to break a piece of cheese and fail; they embark on a grueling adventure even if they don’t see any success, even if they lack motivation or hope. – Emil Vasilache, cinepub.ro

“Camus said to imagine Sisyphus happy. The movie asks us to imagine its characters happy. We see them on screen, they are asymptomatic; although they possess the disease, they show no symptoms. They don’t have a fundamental problem with what’s happening to them, but something is clearly broken. In the same way that the slice of dream they try to bite into, and from which no crumbs reach them, is a microbe trying to penetrate them; so the dreams we train ourselves to daydream are foreign organisms, kept at bay only by antibodies: skepticism, denial, obscurity.” – Emil Vasilache, cinepub.ro

TRIVIA:

• The story of the movie is inspired by Răzvan Săvescu’s acting career. “I was an employee of the National and Bulandra Theaters, I lived a kind of golden period. At the National Theater, with the arrival of director Andrei Șerban, I had the chance to go on tour for about three years. Then I was employed at the Bulandra Theatre for five years and again I traveled. Well, from these tours I gathered a lot of stories, some of them funnier or more unusual than others” (Răzvan Săvescu).
• The director is known for his TV series and the short film “Caviar“.
• Liviu Mărghidan, the cinematographer of the movie, is known for the image of the movie “California Dreamin‘” (dir. Cristian Nemescu).
• About the director’s intention, he confesses, “To show what Romania means today and what it is like overseas. I didn’t want it to be an outright comedy. It’s a movie in which there are sequences of comedy, but which also portrays the drama of these characters. It is an irony of their condition, the condition of the artist in Romania. You can win the National Prize for Best Actor five years in a row and your destiny still doesn’t change. This is what I wanted to emphasize: the dramatic and sad side of this world” (Răzvan Săvescu).
• Filming also took place in the US for ten days. On location, director and screenwriter Oana Ichim had to adapt certain aspects of the script. For example, the character Raymond (the driver of the yellow school bus) was introduced ad hoc, because Alexandru Bindea (Samy) did not have a driver’s license for such a car in America.
• An American policeman and a beggar appear in the movie thanks to unforeseen events. “We were on Fifth Avenue, we wanted to film at McDonald’s, without approval… And we didn’t know how to do it, because there was a policeman there who kept telling us to leave, that we weren’t allowed. So I said, “Rather than chase us away, why don’t you be in the movie?” And he did, so we did our job, and the policeman is in the movie”, the director explained. “There’s also a sequence with a beggar who’s real, we found him at night on Broadway. We had trained the actor for it, but I realized it wasn’t believable. By chance, we found a beggar who was sleeping there and who acted in the movie, in a scene with Mihai Călin,” he added.
• The cheapest filming location in the States was Central Park New York and one of the most expensive was the area around the Statue of Liberty.
• About the target audience for his films, the director said: “My happiness, as a director, would be to have a garbage collector, a peasant and an intellectual in the theater and have them all laughing. I would not differentiate between social classes through humor”.
• Another highlight is the special appearance of the famous Croatian-born actress Mira Furlan, based in Los Angeles. The actress has starred in over 25 significant film productions, including “When Father Was Away on Business” directed by Emir Kusturica, which won the 1985 Palme d’Or and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

LINES:

“We represent Romania!” – Sandu (Mihai Călin)
“You know that I am a strong believer and I keep all the holy fasts and go to church. Before I left, I made a special prayer. The traveler’s prayer.” – Doina (Tania Popa)
“They paid to see Piersic.” – Samy (Alexandru Bindea)
“At the festival in Focșani, I got a daily allowance every single day.” – Fane (Gheorghe Ifrim)
“Let’s face it, we all need money.” – Fane (Gheorghe Ifrim)
“We were sending them to Canada and they didn’t have a visa. We’d smuggle them across the border.” – Samy (Alexandru Bindea)
“Master Florin Piersic and these extraordinary actors decided to donate all the money they raised to renovate the church.” – Romanian priest (Mihai Coadă)
“In English, Cruella is still called Cruella!” – Edi (Adrian Văncică)
“Did he say kitchen? Do we eat chicken?” – Fane (Gheorghe Ifrim)
“Here in America, nothing is free!” – Samy (Alexandru Bindea)
“If I had put your name on the poster, not even my grandmother from the countryside would come to see you!” – Samy (Alexandru Bindea)
“For a director, you’re a pretty good actor.” – Edi (Adrian Văncică)

ARTICLES:

• America, humor and actors – clujulcultural.ro
• America, Here We Come! – roimage.ro
• Director Răzvan Săvescu launches his first feature film: “It’s a movie about the American dream, about each of us” – gandul.ro
• Laughing and crying on movie sets – adevarul.ro
• America, Here We Come! – casadecultura.ro
• From the cycle “Life beats movies”. How “America, Here We Come” was made – suplimentulduldecultura.ro
• The movie “America, Here We Come”, Răzvan Săvescu’s first feature film. “It’s serious, 70% of Romania has no movie theaters” – eclujeanul.ro
• Cripa & America, Here We Come! Escapes from realism – ziarulmetropolis.ro
• Movie review. America, humor and actors – clujulcultura.ro
• Adrian Văncică and Gheorghe Ifrim relive the thrills of their first theater tour in the film “America, Here We Come!”. What they went through across the ocean: “Sorry, I don”t understand” – gandul.ro