THOU SHALT NOT KILL (2018) – drama film online

Directed by: Gabi Virginia Șarga, Cătălin Rotaru
Script: Gabi Virginia Șarga, Cătălin Rotaru
Cast: Alexandru Suciu, Cristina Flutur, Iulia Verdeș, Codin Mateciuc, Gelu Colceag, Tania Filip, Daniel Popa, Dana Rotaru, Cosmin Seleși, Elias Ferkin, Rolando Matsangos, Olimpia Mălai
Producer: Axis Media Production (Adina Sădeanu)
Cinematography by: Tudor Platon
Edited by: Andrei Iancu
Sound: Ștefan Azaharioaie
Year: 2018
Category: Feature film
Genre:  Drama
Duration: 115 minutes

6,688 – Cinepub viewers

PLOT SUMMARY

Cristian, a surgeon at the beginning of his career, is shocked by the death of a patient a few days after a successful operation. Convinced that the death was caused by a nosocomial infection, the young surgeon holds hospital management to account for the purchase of non-compliant biocides. He is marginalized by management and colleagues and forced into a solitary struggle. Even his wife, a nurse at the same hospital, asks him to quit. The doctor addresses the ministry, goes for an audience, talks to a journalist, lodges a complaint with the public prosecutor. All to no avail. His marriage falls apart. Tired, frustrated, on the verge of a mental breakdown, Cristian pursues the owner of the biocide company with the intention of murdering him. But this encounter changes him completely.

AWARDS:

• 2019 – IndieLisboa – TVCine & Series Channels Award
• 2019 – Munich Romanian Film Festival – Debut Award

CRITICAL REVIEWS:

“We would think we were in a Jacques Tati movie if everything wasn’t so sinister.” – Victor Morozov

“The protagonist of “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” a young surgeon at a Bucharest hospital, Cristian (Alexandru Suciu, in his first major movie role), and his struggle for normalcy in an adversarial system are reminiscent of the films of Poland’s Krzysztof Zanussi.” – Ionuț Mareș

“Cătălin Rotaru and Gabi Virginia Șarga patiently and meticulously portray this exhausting bureaucratic path, coupled with the protagonist’s psychological decline (expressed visually, slightly manneristically, through a repetitive sequence in which Cristian obsessively washes his hands before the operations).” – Ionuț Mareș

“Faithful to the realism imposed by the Romanian New Wave, Cătălin Rotaru and Gabi Virginia Șarga keep the camera beside the protagonist in all the sequences, so that we are forced to borrow his perspective and remain captive to his way of seeing those around him. And to make the tension even more palpable, almost the entire movie is built out of long sequence shots.” – Ionuț Mareș

“The filmmakers confess that it’s the story of a Don Quixote wrestling with the human face of a system that exists because we accept it through all of our everyday actions. It is a movie that many will probably recognize themselves in, because we have all been heroes in life for five minutes. Unfortunately, only for five minutes.” – Petre Ivan

“In his solitary struggle against a deeply corrupt system gone murderous, Cristian reaches out to the Ministry of Health, the press and the Romanian Intelligence Service, endangers his career and his family, and the climax of the movie finds him confronting, with an impulsive desire to get him out of the game, the owner of Septo Pharma (of course, the real model here is Dan Condrea). The hints of the first name worn by the main character are reinforced in a scene in which, before he can be received by the Romanian Intelligence Service officers, he appears in a Christ-like posture while being blood-checked by a guard.” – Mihai Fulger

TRIVIA:

• “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is the debut film of the directors Gabi Virginia Șarga and Cătălin Rotaru, but also for many of those who participated in its realization: the actor Alexandru Suciu, who plays the main role, the producer Adina Sădeanu, the director of photography Tudor Platon, as well as other members of the team are all in the first feature film of their career.
• It was made with the support of the CNC, TVR and Zenith Media.
• It was filmed in Bucharest for 21 days and was, as the two directors confess, “a tour de force in which the whole team went through all the stages, just like the main character, the doctor Cristian Badea”.
• The budget for the movie was around €310 000.
• “I made the movie because I was outraged. And it’s not just about the hospitals. It’s about all the corruption in our society at all levels. And I’m also outraged that we’ve gotten used to it and that it seems so normal”, said Gabi Șarga.
• “You don’t just have to do a bad thing to be guilty. There are other forms of guilt. To know and do nothing is to be complicit. What’s more, not knowing does not absolve you of guilt, it just makes you an ignoramus blamable for your ignorance. This movie is about the guilt of each one of us, about our complicit silences, about our laziness to act, to take a stand”, said Cătălin Rotaru.

LINES:

“Stop looking at me like that, my nitric-penile-oxide is rising.” – Professor Augustin Șerbănescu (Gelu Colceag)

“Kleisbiella, Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus aureus. These are all bacteria he picked up in the hospital.” – Cristian (Alexandru Suciu)

“The problem is not that we don’t wash our hands, but what we wash them with. (…) George, didn’t you say it’s just tap water? Ioana, didn’t you say there’s no alcohol in it?” – Cristian Badea (Alexandru Suciu)

“We’re doctors, we don’t rat on each other.” – Professor Augustin Șerbănescu (Gelu Colceag)

“My patient died from bacteria in the hospital. (…) You need to talk to the manager, have him close the ward and disinfect it.” – Cristian Badea (Alexandru Suciu)

“Everyone in the management knows.”
“And why don’t they do anything?”
“Why? Weren’t they all on the committee when the biocides were put out to tender?” – Doctor Ilie Toma (Elias Ferkin)
“They all took their share.” – Cristian Badea (Alexandru Suciu)

“God didn’t want him to live longer. That’s it.” – Nicolae Cărbunaru (Virgil Aioanei)

“I think all septopharma biocides are diluted.” – Cristian Badea (Alexandru Suciu)

“Infections are not declared.” – Cristian Badea (Alexandru Suciu)

“And what do I tell a patient I have to operate on for a hernia? Theoretically, yes, there was a 100% chance to get heal, practically only 82% because the hospital bought diluted biocides.” – Cristian Badea (Alexandru Suciu)

“The boss wanted the article, but marketing opposed it. (…) They were saying that Pharma was going to withdraw their ads. What should I do? They have the money.” – Journalist (Olimpia Mălai)

“I’m Cristian Badea, a doctor in the surgery department at the 147th pediatric hospital in Bucharest and I made this denunciation because I am dissatisfied with the Septo Pharma products used in the hospital. Septo Pharma is the largest producer of biocides in the country. Their products reach 350 hospitals and 2000 operating rooms. Biocides are given in hospitals against bacteria, viruses and spores. They are used to disinfect operating theaters, patients’ rooms and surgeons wash their hands. The problem is, Septo Pharma biocides are diluted. You have on file the results of concentration tests at 6 hospitals in Bucharest. Because of the dilution, the bacteria are no longer destroyed. Instead, they are helped to adapt and become immune to antibiotics. The patients die infected with pyocyanic and staphylococcus aureus. I talked to the hospital, I went to the ministry. Nobody has taken any action, because they all get money from Septo Pharma.” – Cristian Badea (Alexandru Suciu)

ARTICLES:

• Thou Shalt Not Kill (2018) – Wash your hands – revistaechinox.ro
• Thou Shalt Not Kill. The vigilante – ziarulmetropolis.ro
• Thou Shalt Not Kill, world premiere at the Warsaw Film Festival – ziarulmetropolis.ro
• The movie “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, inspired by the Hexi Pharma scandal, will be screened on Friday at Patria Cinema – bizbrasov.ro
• Thou Shalt Not Kill, by Gabi Șarga and Cătălin Rotaru, a drama about systemic corruption vs. man – by Michaela Platon – radioromaniacultural.ro
• The movie “Thou Shalt Not Kill” – from March 1 in theaters in 29 cities in the country – agerpres.ro
• The crisis of the Romanian health system on movie screens – observatorulcultural.ro
• 20 questions, 2 directors, 2 actors and a producer – Thou Shalt Not Kill is from March 1 in theaters in 30 cities in the country – liternet.ro

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