Slash
Date:
December 28, 2024
Slash
Logline
A love-hate relationship between two teenage brothers, who struggle with an authoritarian father and an absent mother, growing up in an environment where violence is normalized.
Synopsis
ION (17) and NICU (11) are two brothers that are growing up in the countryside of Moldova, in an environment where violence is normalized and is even seen as a necessary means for education.
On the day they expect their mother to come back from a long absence working abroad, an accident happens. The younger brother breaks the new bike and the older one is punished for it, by getting smacked with the stick. The father has to meet the mother at the airport, leaving ION to watch over the younger brother, with the warning “not a single hair should fall from his head”. ION is forced to take NICU wherever he goes. After getting involved in a dispute between rivaling gangs from the two neighboring villages, NICU finds the chance to redeem himself in front of his older brother, but ends up making it worse. ION loses sight of his younger brother and is forced to overcome his fears and anger, if he wants to find him.
Author’s Note
In the last couple of years, I started to look deeper into the patterns that emerge in a family and how we inherit traumas that are not ours, yet they become part of us. Noticing and trying to change these patterns in myself, I started to find where they come from.
I decided to explore the love-hate relationship between two teenage brothers, making it the context through which the dysfunctionality of their family is revealed.
While developing this story, it gradually started to shape around the violent and aggressive environment in which my post-soviet generation grew up in and how normalized it is, even to this day. The father from the story thinks that violence and fear is the best way to discipline his children, probably because that’s the way he was educated, and his parents too. But what happens when the entire community is educated in a similar manner? In everyday challenges, violence becomes the default reaction.
The moments of aggressive confrontations are inspired by my own experience as a teenager in a post-soviet country, so I feel like I can bring them to the screen in an interesting and fresh way. While this story seems to have a dramatic and realistic tone, I want to infuse it with moments of humor and brightness, which I believe is what helps us to heal.
Company Profile
VOLT Cinematography is a film production company founded in 2017, based in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. We specialize in the production of author driven films, telling local stories and contributing to the development of the film industry from our country. With a background in animation, short films and series, we also offer services for film post-production and production of documentaries, advertising and music videos. We produced some of Moldova’s most successful short films in recent years – “Place under the sun” and “Sigh”, both directed by Vlad Bolgarin (selected to Shanghai IFF, Sarajevo FF, Busan ISFF, Animayo IFF). We also produced “Lost in Moldova” – a Moldovan-American short series, that became Moldova’s most popular show online (selected to LA Shorts, Seriencamp, SER!AL K!LLER and awarded at Web Fests in Berlin, Seoul, Sydney, Los Angeles). We are currently in the post-production stage of “Mothers and Daughters” – the first professional short fiction by one of the most promising Moldovan female authors Lucia Lupu, and we are in the development stage of two fiction feature films.