"The Magician" is the only Romanian title in the official competition, which totals 35 international titles, productions and co-productions from over 17 countries.
In his first animated short film, Bogdan Mureșanu tells a short story set in Sulina in 1910. The first power station was inaugurated in this Romanian port city. Amid the jubilation of a modern, cosmopolitan crowd, Ilarion, a magician of yesteryear, tries to play his last card.
The screenplay is based on a short story published by Bogdan Mureșanu in his short prose book "Erata" (Libra Publishing House, 2006), but from the story that was not set in Sulina to the screenplay in which he localized the events in this space, several years passed, during which the main theme took shape in this animation project. Bogdan Mureșanu imagined "a day in the life of a small town magician upon whom a new world of electricity comes, bringing with it a different kind of magic, that of modernity" and chose to express this story in an animation, precisely to stimulate the imagination and make the audience wonder what it was like for the inhabitants of Sulina when they saw a lighted bulb in their streets for the first time.
"I wanted to revive a bygone world and the technique of animation allowed me to recreate, from stills, the settings in which the movie takes place, but I also wanted to get to the essence of the story. And here I think animation was a medium that suited my intentions: not to
illustrate the glory of a lost world, through the fate of a once exuberant and cosmopolitan port, now reduced to the dimensions of a forgotten small town, but to represent the substance of the story I wrote many years ago," says Bogdan Mureșanu.
"Film, especially animated film, which is supposed to be a total visual invention, has to produce an image that, at best, then hangs on the walls of those 'dark corridors' in the viewer's mind. "adds the director.
The artistic director of the short film "The Magician" is Alexandru Talambă ("Tambă"), renowned Romanian author, illustrator and comic strip artist, noted in France for the album "Sidi Bouzid Kids" (2012), in Romania for "Elabuga" (2011) and "Mila 23" (2012), titles that remain reference names of the new generation of cartoonists.
Mihnea Buzatu, Octavian Chiriac, Alexei Gubenco, Alexandru Pop worked on the animation of the movie. Mircea Lăcătuș and Andrei Bǎlǎșoiu are the film's editors, while Didier Falk composed the music. Voice actors: Cosmin Șofron, Mihai Gruia Sandu, Ionuț Achivoaie, Ioana Flora, Luca Toma, Olimpia Melinte, Valeriu Andriuță, Dana Vulc, Claudiu Trandafir, Ștefan Velniciuc, Constantin Florescu, Virgil Aioanei, Ionuț Grama, Adriana Titieni, Constantin Bărbulescu, Tudor Istodor, Oltin Hurezeanu, Sebastian Ioan Lungu.
Bogdan Mureșanu is the writer, director and producer of the feature film "The New Year That Never Came", nominated last year at the European Film Awards (European Discovery 2024 - Prix FIPRESCI) and winner of 23 international awards including the Best Film Award in the Orizzonti section and the FIPRESCI Award for Best Film (Venice International Film Festival), Silver Atlas and Youth Jury Prize at the Arras Film Festival; Grand Prize/ Golden Pyramid Award for Best Film at the Cairo International Film Festival; SILVER PEACOCK Award for Best Direction at the Goa International Film Festival, Grand Prize and International Critics Award - FIPRESCI at the Luxembourg City Film Festival.
The film "The New Year That Never Was" won 10 trophies at the Gopo Awards in Romania, four of them for Bogdan Mureșanu - Best Feature Film, Best Debut Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay.
He debuted as a screenwriter in 2008 with the screenplay for "The Human Torch" (Best Romanian Short Film at the TIFF Screenwriting Competition), and has written the screenplays for "Opinci" (2019) - animated short film directed by Anton and Damian Groves (Best Romanian Short Film at TIFF 2019, Young Audience Award at Clermont Ferrand) and "Where is Sofia? " - Best Screenplay at the OAXACA Film Festival, Mexico 2012, then he wrote and directed the short films "Trimmed, Shaved and Milled" (2013), "Spid" (2016), "Negruzzi 14" (2016) and "Semmelweis Reflex (2016)". The short film "The Christmas Present", released in 2018, won the European Film Academy Award in 2019, had over 200 festival selections and 72 awards (including Grand Prix at the Clermont Ferrand International Film Festival, France; Best European Short Film at Alcine, European Film Festival, Spain) and was shortlisted for the Oscar nominations.
The Magician was produced by Kinotopia, in co-production with MINYA Film and Animation (Croatia) and Promenons-nous dans le bois (France).
Producer: Bogdan Mureșanu.
Co-producers: Viorel Chesaru (Chainsaw Europe), Étienne Jaxel-Truer (Promenons-nous Dans Les Bois (Studio Ejt-labo), Miljana Dragicevic (Minya Film And Animation).
Associate producers: Theo Nissim, Ruxandra Șerban, Alexandra Svet.
Executive Producers: Dan Burlac, Adriana Bumbeș.
Production Manager: Sorin Stuparu
International distributor: Eduardo M. Escribano Solera (Mailuki Films).
Special thanks to: Conceptual Lab by Theo Nissim.
