Watching Blue Moon, you often feel like you’ve landed in the middle of an endless family quarrel, with angry or self-indulgent interventions coming from all corners of the screen and falling upon the burdened shoulders of the protagonist, Irina, played by Ioana Chițu. Even in the calmer moments of the film, it’s hard to imagine that the actors enjoyed the fresh mountain air and joked around between takes or told each other what went well or not, before stepping out of the eye of the tornado.

Irina is both a promising and risky character for the actress who plays her. She is either surrounded by relatives who tell her what is best for her, or she insists, without knowing where to start, that she wants to go to college in Bucharest; other times, she clears things up with a man with whom she spent a night she tries to remember; or she is either the victim or the aggressor of a cousin with whom she shares their family business’ duties. She is a character who needs creativity (there are not many protagonists like her, to have built a familiar way of being, in Romanian cinema) and always in the spotlight, but at the same time vulnerable, caught in less flattering situations, sometimes passive, just like many women in our society, whose experiences deserve to be represented on screen.

Ioana Chițu leapt into the role without fear and now, with Blue Moon coming out in Romanian cinemas, she tells us about her experience. I asked her about the collaboration with Alina Grigore, the film’s director, who is also a trained actress and acting teacher (since 2011, at the InLight acting school); moreover, I wanted to know, now while it’s still (somewhat) fresh, what it felt like to watch on the screen the turmoil she lived in front of the camera. Last but not least, because both the project and Ioana’s career are related to activism, I was curious to find out how she views her ability to be vulnerable in a fictional context.

You’ve prepared your character for a long time and, in my opinion, that can be seen in the way you manage to “be” Irina. How did you work with Alina Grigore before shooting the film?

I have a long history with Alina, I met her when I was in high school and we worked on a theater play. I always admired her for the way she explains the psychology of the characters and the nature of their relationships, so that later she can ask you specific questions and guide you towards the complete discovery of the character you have to build.

When she asked me if I wanted to play Irina, I had mixed feelings; I was excited because I had seen Illegitimate and I found the work method and the extensive research to be unique and challenging, but also afraid – because I was going through a difficult period professionally speaking, with limited and unfulfilling projects that had robbed me of my confidence in myself and my future as an actress.

But the trust I have in Alina and the great script convinced me that I have to give it a try, knowing that it will involve a lot of work.

I think we started the actual work in 2016, when part of the cast was different, with intense discussions on the script and Irina’s history, focusing on the common experiences between me and Irina, a character inspired by the stories of several girls that Alina observed and documented over time.

We talked a lot about those girls, about all the events she had witnessed since childhood, which she rigorously documented. I was able to understand because I also came across similar stories and I was able to analyze both from a psychological and anthropological perspective.

Unfortunately, gender-based violence, in all its forms, is so normalized that I think every woman is or has been exposed to it at some point.

The challenge and the hard part were actually building Irina’s pace and energy, the way she responds to violence, given that I have an extremely different personality.

From a certain initial passivity to the way she moves, the voice and the body posture came out naturally, without necessarily focusing on these aspects.

Another deep concern was to fully understand the relationships between the characters, why they act and/or react in that way, where they come from and what drives them. After this period of all of us working on the script and dissecting everything, we continued with some improvisations on the text guided by Alina. She selected various scenes and worked on them in all kinds of locations: in the car, in bars, in parking lots, even in the open field, outside Bucharest. Later we ended up rehearsing right at the shooting location, the Gigi Ursu cabin.

I think Irina took shape and developed as we worked, she gained multidimensionality, and I think that happened even while shooting; with each take, there was always something new to discover.

Did changing the environment and staying at the mountain cabin during shootings help you all work as a collective? I find it interesting and somehow typically Romanian that there is this mixture of urban and remoteness from the world when it comes to the lifestyle of the family in the film, which, on the one hand, is very business-like, with its male members in suits, and on the other hand, is isolated and interdependent.

I think that the immersion in that environment helped a lot, both with the team bonding and the characters’ presence in that space. Starting with all the household chores we did together: bringing water from the stream, setting the table, cutting wood, to sharing the room with Ilinca Neacșu, who plays Viki, Irina’s sister, all have led to a solid team and collaborative work.

And the shooting days would end in clear sky and starry nights with all kinds of discussions, which led to beautiful friendships and precious connections. Gabi and Geta Ursu, the two women who run now the former cabin, are examples of independence and huge sources of inspiration to me.

As for the men in the film, I think it’s important to mention that these characters were also created based on real models, which were observed and carefully documented. And this desire to gain wealth and power, through all kinds of business and combinations[IT1] , money that is moved around only in the family, I think is a consequence of capitalism and patriarchy. That is why the rural image in the film is not the idyllic one that many of us still have in their mind.

The viewing experience is greatly influenced by cinematography, camera movements, framing, etc. Did you have any surprises about how things look in the final edit compared to how you imagined them while in character?

The film had its world premiere at the San Sebastián Film Festival and that’s where I saw it for the first time. I had seen some scenes while still in post-production, but, out of context, they seemed chaotic.

I was surprised and confused because there were many scenes that didn’t make it into the final edit. Alina had told me about her intention to have some taken out, but I didn’t know exactly what to expect.

The first thing I wondered about was how the audience will perceive Irina, if they will be with her on her journey, whether there are too many violent scenes, without moments of respite, of detachment, which might trigger too much discomfort.

I felt completely exposed, especially with close-ups, in my mind something very strange happened, the image of Irina overlapped with the image I have of myself and it led to this odd feeling I hadn’t felt before. Probably due to the fact that I’ve worked so intensely and for such a long time on building the character that she somehow became a part of me.

At the second viewing, I managed to detach myself and regard her with a critical eye.

During shootings, I didn’t want to watch the takes we had shot when they replayed them on the video assist; when I have to play sensitive scenes that require a certain focus and vulnerability, I refuse to watch the replayed footage so as not to be distracted by other things and then lose sight of my goal in front of the camera and become concerned about “how it looks” . Anyway, I always knew what lens they used, and I worked wonderfully with Adrian Pădurețu, the director of photography; we would always rehearse the scene before moving to “action”, so I could imagine what it looked like. Apart from a few scenes, where I had some doubts about my performance, when I would hear “cut, moving forward”, I trusted Alina that we nailed it.

What was the work process with Mircea Postelnicu and Emil Măndănac? It seems that in both cases the volatility of your relationship, as well as the feeling that your characters are deeply connected (by blood ties or physical attraction) required a fairly strong chemistry and compatibility.

I’ve known Mircea for many years, since the times I would go with the high school theater troupe to various youth theater festivals. I have been following his activity since college and I think he is an exceptional actor. Besides his acting skills and his real concern for understanding his character, he is also extremely attentive to the needs of his work partner; we always spoke openly before and after rehearsals, we constantly gave each other feedback. I think that the feeling the film conveys regarding our relationship also comes from the fact that we had a lot of trust in each other, and together with Alina, we discussed personal limits so that the film shooting wouldn’t be a traumatic experience for any of us.

Emil is a colleague and an extremely generous and patient actor with whom I collaborated very well. The intimate scenes are not easy, but due to a certain availability and a common sense of humor, we managed to feel comfortable in the discomfort that those moments entailed.

I think Alina’s experience as an actress was very important in guiding these very sensitive scenes.

How often were you surprised by someone’s reaction in the audience (be it Romanian, foreigner, journalist, usual spectator)? Since the film approaches several sensitive topics (rape, young women’s autonomy, dysfunctional family), you would expect people to perceive things in different ways.

I had the privilege of attending Q&A sessions at various international festivals where the film was selected. With one exception, where the moderator exoticized Eastern Europe, stating that in the West, respectively Germany, the world is civilized and there is gender equality, on all the other occasions I’ve been present, there were people who either experienced or witnessed gender violence, abuse in various forms.

What worries me is the level of awareness of this issue, many people not understanding why Irina is returning to the abusive environment in which she has been living. These questions ought to reflect how difficult it actually is for victims to escape their abusive environments and how difficult it is to gain access to education.

I was hoping that by 2022 there would be no more comments like “stop women from writing and directing already”, and here I am referring to the usual spectator, who may be representative of certain categories, once again confirming the need for this film.

Diverting a bit from the film, are there any characters (whether they are female or male, contemporary or not) in Romanian cinema that inspire you?

Without thinking too much, I will mention Angela, played by Dorina Lazăr, in Angela Moves On, written by Eva Sârbu, directed by Lucian Bratu, a socialist feminist film revolving around a divorced, independent woman, who has a typical “male” job, a taxi driver who easily enjoys her tea alone in front of the TV, is supportive with other women and doesn’t need a man in her life. Very interesting both in how the relationship with her mother and her partner are portrayed. I also like the approach to the character Emi in Bad Luck Banging (dir. Radu Jude), played wonderfully by an actress whom I greatly admire both for her talent and activist work, Katia Pascariu.

At the other end, do you think there are any disturbing types in Romanian theater or film?

What bothers me the most is when cis-het directors approach topics they haven’t experienced, such as abortion among young women, who end up being presented in a trivial way, thus working against women’s rights and not joining the emancipation efforts.

I want and need to see round, complex characters both in film and theater, characters who represent and inspire me and give me hope that at some point we will live in a fairer world.

What does an actor’s job description look like, in your opinion? It seems that you are interested in projects that are diverse and often explore topics in the field of activism. I’m curious what sort of situations you find the most rewarding to play a role in front of an audience.

“Job description” sounds very corporate (laughs). Although it’s not mentioned in the job description – in fact, I have no idea what the job description of an actress employed by a state theater looks like, I work as a freelancer – I can say that art (so both theater and cinema) is political. And it needs to be treated with the utmost responsibility. I feel useful when I can give voice to less visible people, make them feel represented and heard. When I participate together with various teams in education and representation, when perhaps we give a little strength and hope to groups with fewer privileges.

It’s rewarding when people come to me after film screenings or stage performances and say, “It’s my story, I find comfort in knowing I’m not alone”, or they ask, “What can we do next?”.

But it can also be extremely frustrating when you think that maybe precisely those who have the power to change something don’t come to the theater or to see the film, and sometimes you have the feeling that your work is in vain.

Irina Trocan

She teaches at the Bucharest Film School & when not teaching, she writes criticism, and when not writing, she edits reviews and essays for Acoperișul de Sticlă (and beyond). When doing neither of these, she arbitrarily watches bad YouTube or, even better, wastes her time.