Synopsis
“Love Bus” is an omnibus film made up of five different episodes, each of them taking place in a different district of Bucharest, Romania. The film was shot independently, with a micro budget, by students and recent graduates of the National Film School UNATC “I.L. Caragiale” and it represents their collective debut on the big screen.
Director: Roxana Andrei, Mihai Mincan, Florin Babei, Constantin Radu Vasile, Andrei Georgescu
Scriptwriters: Roxana Andrei, Cristian Delcea, Mihai Mincan, Florin Babei, Roxana Mocanu, Constantin RaduVasile, Paul Negoescu
Cast: Ada Galeș, Cătălin Jugravu, Andrei Ion, Tania Popa, Iulia Ciochină, Andrei Seușan, Bogdan Zamfir, CătălinaCrișan, Issabela Yang, Nicolas Teodorescu, ȘtefanMircea, Carla Teahă, Victoria Răileanu, Alec Secăreanu
Produced by: Paul Negoescu, RaduStancu (co-producer), Gabi Suciu (co-producer)
Cinematography by: Mihai Marius Apopei, George Chiper-Lillemark, Alex Brendea, Victor Ionichi, Adrian Clocușneanu
Editing by: Alexandru Constantin Alin, Dragoș Apetri, Florin Babei, Andreea Danilescu, Sebastian Plămădeală, Constantin Radu Vasile
Category: short films
Genre: romance, drama
Year: 2014
Duration: 74 minutes
4,443 – Cinepub viewers
PLOT SUMMARY:
Episode 1: “Iancului”
Alexandra is 20 years old and has one goal: to get back together with her ex-boyfriend, at any risk, regardless of the people she might hurt in the process.
Episode 2: “Drumul Taberei”
Bucharest, Romania – Fairbanks, Alaska. 27 days by car. 25 hours by plane. One second by thought.
Episode 3: “Unirii”
At a teenagers’ party, Bobo tries to convince his virgin girlfriend to sleep with him but she rejects him, as she doesn’t fell ready yet. Both of them will soon find consolation in the arms of other people.
Episode 4: “Tineretului”
Stefan meets a former girlfriend from high-school. They have a walk in the park and decide to see each other later. After buying some weed, he goes home only to find out the girl has died in a car crash.
Episode 5: “Cișmigiu”
George and Andreea make a relaxed couple. One day, Andreea finds a bottle of massage oil in George’s bathroom and he can’t explain how it got there.
Awards
- 2014 – Târgu-Mureș Indie Festival, Romania – Best Indie Film Award
- 2015 – Gopo Awards, Romania – Best Supporting Actress (Iulia Ciochină)
Festivals:
- 2014 – Victoria Film Festival, Romania
- 2014 – Timishort Film Festival, Romania
- 2014 – Arcipelago Film Festival, Italy
- 2015 – Love Story Film Festival in Brasov, Romania
- 2015 – Paris SEE Film Festival, France
Reviews:
“Five slices of life, structured around the eternal theme of love, lived in their twenties, but far from the nonchalance of the song that wants young people to be “carefree and penniless”. Our heroes do have worries. If a quick structuralist calculation shows us that the significant objects of the fragment of life captured are the bed, the cigarette and the telephone, another, psychological calculation reveals troubled feelings, crossed by questions and uncertainties.” – Magda Mihăilescu
“A modest grouping of short films that each parade with the name of an area of the capital, although none of the very young directors put much work into the Bucharest space in which they place their story.” – Andrei Gorzo
“Love Bus is yet another step towards the creation of the commercial genre at the local level. A genre about young people, with their specific problems; a genre that is extremely fashionable in the USA, the country-etalon in this sense; a genre that exposes the distractions of this generation and the traumas stemming from the world state; a genre that often talks about the habits produced with the development of technology and with it the proposal of a new way of thinking and acting (mechanically, I would say cybernetically)” – Ion Indolean
Five simple stories, five moments of existence, five attempts to find a directorial voice, and the transition between them is made through high shots of Bucharest, just like in an American soap opera – Ionuț Mareș
“A geography of young love takes shape. Love is a difficult theme because of the permanent risk of derailing into sentimentality and false notes. The five young directors manage, however, more inspired or less original, to get around the pitfalls of over-dramatization, of an abysmal treatment of perhaps the most overused subject in cinema. ‘Keep it simple’ seems to have been the unspoken motto guiding the writers and directors.” – Ionuț Mareș
“Of the five love stories in ‘LOVE BUS,’ only one can truly be called cinema, another masterfully offers a masterclass in heightening dramatic tension, and the rest strive to the finish.” – Emil Vasilache
Trivia:
- “Love Bus” is a Romanian movie composed of five short films on love and Bucharest. They represent the work of several directors, screenwriters, picture editors and actors, all newcomers to the world of film.Thematically, the films adopt situations that have been tackled so far in many Romanian films concerned with the domestic sphere, but each of the participants in their making has made an effort to leave their own mark, a mark to be developed further in their future careers.
Lines:
- “There’s no point knocking if you’re going to come in anyway!” – Alexandra (Ada Galeș)
- “If you break up with me, at least have the decency to look me in the eye.” – Alexandra (Ada Galeș)
- “Cristina knows the landlord and gives him money and everything. I haven’t even seen his face.” – Flori (Iulia Ciochină)
- “You Mogli! How come you called me?” – Flori (Iulia Ciochină)
- “Do you know that mom prays for you?” – Flori (Iulia Ciochină)
- “I told her – mom, stop praying for Gabi the engineer. Pray for Gabi with the computers. And now she’s praying for you.” – Flori (Iulia Ciochină)
- “Satanist rock isn’t Satanist actually either.” – Fane (Ștefan Mircea)
- “Wow, Don Juan! Don’t scare me or I’ll have a jealous fit here.” – Andreea (Victoria Răileanu)
- “How the hell did Dana give you this oil last summer when the date of manufacture says it was made two weeks ago?” – Andreea (Victoria Răileanu)
Media articles
- To the Romanian genre movie – Love Bus – agentia.liternet.ro
- Modest – America, we’re coming! & Love Bus: Five love stories from Bucharest – agentia.liternet.ro
- Love Bus. Five love stories in Bucharest – ziarulmetropolis.ro
- Movie review: ‘Love Bus: Five love stories in Bucharest” – hotnews.ro
- The movie-omnibus “Love Bus: Five love stories from Bucharest” to have its world premiere in Bucharest – agerpres.ro
