INTERVIEW: Bogdan George Apetri’s latest film is a ‘Miracle’
Photo: Miracle stars Ioana Bugarin and Valeriu Andriuță. The film is directed by Bogdan George Apetri. Photo courtesy of Film Movement / Provided by Film Forum press site with permission.
Filmmaker Bogdan George Apetri has been on a cinematic journey these past few years. The adventure began with his 2020 feature Unidentified, which kickstarted a trilogy of films set in a small northern Romanian town based on the village where the director grew up. The second part of this triptych is called Miracle, and audiences can catch it at New York City’s Film Forum. In fact, they can watch both Unidentified and Miracle at special screenings Thursday, June 9, with Apetri and star Bogdan Farcas offering a Q&A.
Apetri began writing the script for Unidentified in 2017, and during the development process he decided to switch the location of the story to a town he knows well.
“I know my native town from where I am in Romania,” the filmmaker said in a recent phone interview. “It’s a small town in the north part of the country. I said, I’m going to switch it to my town because I know the town so well. I know every street corner. I know how people think. I know how they open the door. I know how they say hi. I know how they joke, so I’m going to do that.”
Once he settled on his new location, the cinematic project began to expand into a trilogy, and the ideas kept coming. While he was actively rewriting Unidentified, the second half of his brain was actively searching for inspiration for the second and third installments. (There are few details on the third installment at this time. The director said it will have religious themes, and he’s actively writing the script now.)
“I suddenly got the idea for Miracle,” he said. “It came to me in a strange way — in an airport by the way — and almost fully formed, which is crazy. It became the second part, and I started writing the two scripts at the same time. So I think it was an organic way of developing the trilogy, not an artificial point where I have three separate stories that I’m trying to put together. But actually starting pretty much from the very beginning with the idea that they’re going to be part of three installments of the same thing.”
Miracle, according to press notes, centers on a young novice who sneaks away from her remote convent in rural Romania. Something shocking and mysterious happens to the young woman, and a police detective is called in to find some answers. As the description for the film indicates, Miracle is less of a whodunnit and more of a “who are these people?” Ioana Bugarin stars as the young novice.
“The idea came from Balzac where he has novels where the stories are completely self-contained,” Apetri said. “They don’t relate to each other, except in the vaguest of ways, but the words are the same and the larger constellation of characters is the same. That’s exactly what I was doing here. Miracle has no direct connection to the narrative structure of Unidentified or the story, so you can see Unidentified and not see Miracle and understand them 100 percent. You can see Miracle and not see Unidentified. It’s more of a bonus if you saw Unidentified because you realize, hey, I’ve seen this character. The main character in Miracle also has a part in Unidentified. A taxi driver also has a part there, so you can get little glimpses of the same world. But you can absolutely enjoy Miracle without seeing Unidentified, no problemo.”
For Apetri, the script comes first in his creative process, but he quickly moves on to actors and locations. Those three elements are the most crucial creative aspects of his cinema. He even called actors and locations “primordial,” and when he says actors, he doesn’t necessarily mean good or bad actors. He prefers the term: the “right” actor.
“I spend about eight months casting this movie, not just this movie, but I cast the two movies at the same time,” he said. “In fact, I would say that I shot them at the same time. Two days one movie, and then we switch in the next three days to Miracle, and then another four days back to Unidentified and things like this. So it made it easier. Actors, by the way, watched each other, which is a great experience for me and for them as well. They watched scenes from the other movie, so it really was like a theater ensemble. Instead of working on two plays together, we were working on two movies together. … I rehearse a lot. I don’t put pressure. I’m very kind. I shoot a lot of takes until we get it.”
One of the prevailing thoughts in Apetri’s mind is that each of his films will one day out-survive both him and the actors, so he wants to make sure everything and everyone will leave a lasting impression. He likened on-screen performances to a Greek inscription on a tablet or sculpture.
“What you put on screen will always be there, petrified in a way, so I’m very, very careful who plays a part because they’re not going to play the part for the 30 days we’re shooting,” the director said. “They’re going to play for the 100 years that the movie will survive.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywodSoapbox.com
Miracle, written and directed by Bogdan George Apetri, is now playing New York City’s Film Forum. Click here for more information and tickets.
