ELEVATOR
(Elevatorul)
Romania, feature, 2008, 85 min
In Romanian with English sub-titles

Director: George Dorobantu
Screenwriter: Gabriel Pintilei
Producers: Alexandra M. Paun and Gabriel Pintilei
Production Company: Keep Movieng
Camera: George Dorobantu
Editor: George Dorobantu
Music: Ada Milea
Cast: Cristi Petrescu, Iulia Verdes

Synopsis
Shot in eighteen days in the elevator of a Bucharest theatre for a budget of just 300 Euros, Elevator is a small masterpiece of tension and nerve-shredding claustrophobia. Based on a real event which happened in London and on an award-winning stage play written by Gabriel Pintilei, it follows a boy and a girl, high school teenagers on a romantic escapade who hide in an abandoned factory on the outskirts of town. But once there they get stuck in the cargo elevator with no one around to hear them and nobody aware of their whereabouts. Tension arises after each failed attempt to escape, while they also have to deal with the fact that their entire universe is now reduced to a metal box smaller than a room.

Ronald Bergan of The Guardian describes Elevator as “a tense claustrophobic drama”, noting that the film’s high quality “proved that a minuscule budget is no hindrance to talent, and provided hope for the future.” Film critic Tudor Caranfil called the film’s release the “event of the year in Romanian cinema”. Fabien Baumann of Positif says, “Elevator evokes Gus Van Sant's Gerry (despite using the opposite device of confined space rather then open desert), and even his Last Days in its glorious final sequence.”

Awards
‘Young Hope Award’ at Gopo Awards 2009
‘Best Editing Award’ from Romanian Filmmakers Association, 2009
‘ Best Romanian Independent Feature of 2008’ at Best Film Fest, 2009
‘ Audience Feature Choice Award’ at Auburn International Film Festival, 2008
‘ Fresh Generation Award’ at Karlovy Vary Film Festival, 2008
‘ Best Romanian Debut’ at Transylvania International Film Festival, 2008
‘ Fresh Generation Award’ at Fresh Film Fest, Prague 2008

Festivals:
2009 Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival
2009 Belfast International Film Festival
2009 Glasgow Film Festival
2009 Mediawave International Film Festival, Hungary
2008 International Film Festival of Uruguay
2008 Independent Producers International Film Festival, Romania

Director George Dorobantu
George Dorobantu, born in Constanta, Romania in 1974, is a self-taught independent filmmaker with no traditional film school training. He has shot several digital short films and a rock band documentary (Aliaj - A Rehearsal). His feature script Donna Morgana was acquired by the Romanian national television network TVR to be produced in 2009. Recently, he completed Guru/Kiddo, a short film included in the anthology film Money, a project produced by Florin Piersic Jr. Elevator is Dorobantu’s first feature. His upcoming film, Omega Rose, is a post-apocalyptic journey movie in which a young man goes on a dramatic pilgrimage marked by encounters with few isolated survivors, an uncommunicative alien, a ferocious pseudo-zombie, a few high-tech soldiers, and a girl.

Filmography:
OMEGA ROSE (2010)
GURU/KIDDO (2008)
HAI! (music video, 2005)
ALIAJ, A REHEARSAL (documentary, 2004)
FADE OUT (2003)

DVD Source:
Romanian Cultural Institute
New York
www.icrny.org/
Film web site: www.elevator.ro