Directing and Cinematography: George Dorobanţu
Original title: Elevator
Romania, 2007, 85 min.
Screenplay: Gabriel Pintilei
Cast: Cristi Petrescu, Iulia Verdeş
Production: Keep Movieng
Festivals & Awards: Best Romanian Debut, Transilvania IFF 2008; Fresh Generation Award, Fresh Film Fest, Prague 2008; Audience Feature Choice Award, Auburn IFF, Australia 2008

One of the most surprising films in the festival is a guerilla-style miniDV low-budget production (made for just $300) based on an award-winning stage play written by Gabriel Pintilei. Shot by an unknown director-cinematographer with two unknown actors, Elevator nevertheless enthralls audiences with a tense relationship between two teenagers trapped in the broken elevator of a deserted factory. There is no one around to hear them, and nobody knows their whereabouts. They have no food and no water and, as days go by, they lose hope of ever getting out alive. The premise is exciting and the film manages to keep you on high alert for a whole 85 minutes. “What this beautiful dying couple goes through in 85 minutes would take most people 30 years (and several divorces) to live through. 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.” – Fabien Baumann, Positif