FILMS FOR SALE - Feature Length - "Occident"

Occident

SYNOPSIS

Occident is a bitter comedy in three parts. There are three different stories ­ a weeklong in the film - that cross, interconnect and happen in the same period. The characters influence each others lives sometimes even without knowing. At the same time, scenes from the first parts bring unexpected facts when seen the second or the third time. The stories do not have just one ending: the first story ends in each of the third parts in a different point, suggesting radically different solutions for the characters.

1. Luci and his fiancée, Sorina are thrown out of their home and they end up by having to live in different places. Sorina decides her life has to change and hopes her father will advice her what to do. Just that her father is dead so Luci and Sorina wait in the cemetery to get some sign from the other world. But the only thing that happen is that he gets hit in the head by a bottle fallen like from the sky. On this occasion, Sorina meets a foreigner, the French Jerome. Luci understands that if he doesn’t find a house quickly, the girl could leave with the French guy to live a better and pleasant life than he can offer. Luci has been taking care for years of an old woman, Aunt Leana that promised to leave him her apartment when she dies. Luci has a moral dilemma: he is desperate to get his fiancée back but he doesn’t have the heart to push the old woman pass away more quickly. Luci finds himself a job as a human size beer bottle advertiser and thus he meets Mihaela, a girl working as a human size telephone advertiser. Mihaela gives him lots of advice about how women should be conquered back but nothing seems to work out. Something unexpected happen when he has almost lost all his hope: a policeman comes to announce the old lady that her long time emigrated son, Nicu, died in a car crash. Such news could kill even a healthier person. Luci runs to let know his wife that they could move back in together but he arrives too late: she left with the foreigner, just minutes before his arrival.

2. Mihaela is a romantic but clumsy girl. Her dream is too see her poems published. She has a severe Policeman as a father and an authoritarian woman as a mother. She is on the point of getting married but her future to be husband, Vasile, doesn’t show up at the wedding. The family is desperate: who would marry her now after such a shameful event. So the mother has an idea: her daughter has to marry a foreigner and go live somewhere far away from the gossipy people around. She finally convinces the girl to go meet several potential husbands recruited through a matrimonial agency but they all prove to be disappointing: they are either too old, disabled, or spooky. Furthermore, she falls in love with her work colleague, Luci. But her mother convinces to see one more suitor. They talk to this Italian guy on the phone and he seems to be all right: he is young, tall, handsome, rich, owns a printing house and loves her poems. Mihaela gives up romantic feelings and the Italian comes to visit her and her parents. He is as described but black. The family is desperate once again as Mihaela decides to marry him and leave, anyhow. 

3. Mihaela’s father, the conservative, severe and misogyny Policeman is only one week away from his pension time and has everything planned out for the rest of his life. His daughter is going to get married and live in their house and he would get back to work the land in his native village - a desire that haunted his entire life. But nothing happened as planned. First, at the wedding day he is asked to look for the missing groom and he finds him drunk in the nearby graveyard. The policeman decides that no husband is better than a drunken husband for his daughter and scares him off. Then, he meets Nae. Nae has returned from Germany to bring the news that Nicu died. He asks the policeman to help him find Nicu’s mother and his childhood best friend. The policeman accepts and eventually he finds Luci. Meanwhile, he finds himself forced to accept at home the visit of his daughter’s Italian suitor, which proves to be the black Luigi. What seemed to be unacceptable to him a week before is the only way out now: The policeman asks Nae to take Mihaela to Germany for a while to prevent her from leaving with the Black Italian.