BERLIN (Reuters) – Radu Jude returned to the Berlin Film Festival on Wednesday with “Kontinental ’25,” a comedy drama about a bailiff’s misplaced moral crisis that marks the Romanian director’s bid for a second Golden Bear after winning the top prize four years ago.
“Kontinental ’25” is based on a news article Jude read about a female bailiff feeling guilt after evicting someone who later kills himself, the director told journalists.
The bailiff’s reaction “struck me at the same time as being extremely moving and extremely questionable”, because feeling that way after the fact could be seen as hypocritical, he said.
The film centres on the moral crisis felt by the bailiff, played by Romanian actor Eszter Tompa, over the incident.
“Actually, I hate films about moral crises. I’m more interested in the material aspect of cinema, but here it is interesting because it’s misplaced,” the director said.
Jude won the festival’s top prize in 2021 with the sexually explicit dark comedy “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn.”
Only Taiwan-born Oscar-winning director Ang Lee has so far won two Golden Bear awards, for “The Wedding Banquet” in 1993 and with “Sense and Sensibility” in 1996.
“Kontinental ’25” is one of 19 films competing for the top prize at the festival this year, with other entrants including “Blue Moon” from U.S. director Richard Linklater, and South Korean auteur Hong Sangsoo’s “What Does that Nature Say to You.”
(Reporting by Miranda Murray; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
